Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind Listener Mail.
Speaker 3: This is Robert Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. Now, Hey,
Speaker 3: if you've been listening to the show for the past
Speaker 3: few years but maybe tuned out over the past month
Speaker 3: or so, you might not be aware that we've changed
Speaker 3: up our format a little bit on listener Mail. For
Speaker 3: a while, we had been doing it as a weekly
Speaker 3: offering every Monday, but for the time being, we're trying
Speaker 3: out a different schedule, which is more like what we
Speaker 3: used to do going several years back. We used to
Speaker 3: run listener Mail in a Tuesday Thursday slot every so often,
Speaker 3: you know, whenever the mail bag would accumulate sufficiently, And
Speaker 3: that's what we're doing for now. So we're bringing you
Speaker 3: listener Mail today. We've got messages on all kinds of topics.
Speaker 3: We've got stuff about warships, ramming, we've got stuff about
Speaker 3: we've got stuff about ninjas, we've got stuff about horned lizards.
Speaker 3: It's all over the place, and lots of responses to
Speaker 3: the warriors, way more than we can get to, but
Speaker 3: we'll do our best to give a somewhat representative sample.
Speaker 2: Well where do we even begin to dive in here, Joe.
Speaker 3: Well, let's see. I'm going to start things off with
Speaker 3: this message from Ian about our series on Dust. All right,
Speaker 3: Ian says, dear Robin, Joe, I was listening to the
Speaker 3: fifth episode of your series on Dust, in which you
Speaker 3: talk about dust storms and dust devils. In the discussion
Speaker 3: of dust storms, you briefly mentioned plants abilities to prevent
Speaker 3: such storms by securing the soil with their roots and
Speaker 3: acting as wind breaks. I am from southern Kansas, where
Speaker 3: we are very familiar with using plants as wind breaks.
Speaker 3: When you drive through any rural area, you will see
Speaker 3: about every quarter to half mile a straight line of
Speaker 3: true planted between the wheat fields. Those were planted in
Speaker 3: direct response to the dust Bowl and are still maintained
Speaker 3: to this day. They were always just in the background
Speaker 3: to me. I never thought about them until one time
Speaker 3: we were driving to South Dakota to visit family and
Speaker 3: I noticed somewhere around the Kansas Nebraska border the tree
Speaker 3: lines disappeared. I don't know what cultural reasons underlie this difference,
Speaker 3: whether they weren't hit as hard by the dust bowl
Speaker 3: and never had them in the first place, or if
Speaker 3: they used to have them but haven't maintained them. Whatever
Speaker 3: the reason, it always stands out to me when we
Speaker 3: drive through, how strange the landscape looks without the trees.
Speaker 3: Dust devils are another thing we are very familiar with
Speaker 3: around here. I've always associated them with mid morning in
Speaker 3: the late summer or early fall. I never thought about
Speaker 3: why until you described how they are formed. It makes
Speaker 3: perfect sense now that around that time of day the
Speaker 3: air is still somewhat cooler from overnight, but the sun
Speaker 3: is starting to heat up the ground, creating the temperature
Speaker 3: inversion you discussed. I've seen them most often unpaved surfaces
Speaker 3: such as basketball courts or parking lots, especially gravel ones,
Speaker 3: which must provide the smooth, open surface they require. The
Speaker 3: ones we see are typically quite small, maybe twenty or
Speaker 3: thirty feet high and five or so feet across, very wispy,
Speaker 3: and extremely transient, often lasting only a couple of minutes.
Speaker 3: Definitely not anything that could cause damage we have real
Speaker 3: tornadoes for that. They are quite captivating, though they tend
Speaker 3: to fade in and out of view as the amount
Speaker 3: of dust they're carrying varies, and sometimes will seem to
Speaker 3: almost stop rotating and fade away altogether before picking up
Speaker 3: speed and strength again. Children especially find them in thralling,
Speaker 3: as I did myself when I was a kid. Thanks
Speaker 3: as always for your work, especially in highlighting the wonder
Speaker 3: of seemingly mundane things. I never would have guessed dust
Speaker 3: would be such a rich topic of discussion, but I'm
Speaker 3: glad to have learned my mistake. Ian Well, thank you
Speaker 3: so much and yeah, interesting email. I recall also seeing
Speaker 3: dust Devil's form a little bit when I was a kid,
Speaker 3: also on gravel or paved surfaces. That's exactly what I
Speaker 3: associate them with them being unlike oh, I don't know,
Speaker 3: like over the gravel and then edging onto the concrete
Speaker 3: basketball court on the playground outside my elementary school.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I too have definite memories of seeing them kick
Speaker 2: up on little paved areas and so forth, you know,
Speaker 2: parking lots sort of scenarios.
Speaker 3: I'm also intrigued by the tree line mystery. I didn't
Speaker 3: have time to look this up before we recorded today,
Speaker 3: but I wonder if there was a if there is
Speaker 3: an answer out there to this, Why the tree lines
Speaker 3: between the Fields and Kansas but not Nebraska all right.
Speaker 2: This next one comes to us from Tim tim Rights
Speaker 2: in on the horned lizards. Tim Wrights fellas, I only
Speaker 2: have some heartfelt nostalgia to add to your blood spitting
Speaker 2: lizard dropped today. I was born in Midland, which is
Speaker 2: firmly in the Texas horny toad range. We moved from
Speaker 2: Texas to the East Coast when I was almost five,
Speaker 2: so catching, playing with and building little makeshift terrariums for
Speaker 2: my legion of horny toads is still one of my
Speaker 2: most vivid memories of my brief origins in Texas. They
Speaker 2: were really pretty gentle little lizards and would quickly go
Speaker 2: to sleep if you flipped them over and rub their belly.
Speaker 2: It's good they had spikes because they were pretty easy
Speaker 2: to catch, even for a four year old. They definitely
Speaker 2: would spit blood at you if you surprised them, but
Speaker 2: as these were the only lizards I'd ever known up
Speaker 2: to this point, I was more surprised later to find
Speaker 2: out that all lizards didn't bleed out of their eyes. Again,
Speaker 2: maybe from the vantage of a four year old, I
Speaker 2: just didn't notice, but I don't ever remember anything eating them.
Speaker 2: All the dogs in the area learned real fast that
Speaker 2: the juice wasn't worth the squeeze, so the thorns and
Speaker 2: the blood must have done their job. Again, take everything
Speaker 2: I say as veiled through the eyes of a child,
Speaker 2: But forty years later, it was a real nostalgic run
Speaker 2: for me today listening to this one.
Speaker 3: Thanks Tim, Thank you, Tim. That's an interesting detail that
Speaker 3: you said the dogs just left them alone. I wonder
Speaker 3: if that is a product of past experience, like they
Speaker 3: got the blood Jets one time, it tasted bad enough
Speaker 3: that they just don't mess with them at all, or
Speaker 3: or what. Yeah, by the way, did we end up
Speaker 3: calling those episodes here come the blood Jets.
Speaker 2: I don't think we did, but I remember having that
Speaker 2: Brian Eno reference in the notes at least. I can't
Speaker 2: even remember if we specifically said it at one point
Speaker 2: or another, but it's always in the background.
Speaker 3: Whatever we actually used. I know at one point a
Speaker 3: title I had somewhere in my head was like warm
Speaker 3: blood squirting from the Lizard's eye, which sounds like a
Speaker 3: Jallo movie. You know, they have those great titles that
Speaker 3: are like a whole sentence or like a lot of words.
Speaker 2: We ended up using a variation of that blood squirting
Speaker 2: from the lizard's eye. Okay, okay, so we did kind
Speaker 2: of in focus sense of that your vice is a
Speaker 2: lizard's eye and I am the blood or something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, we got another message about the Texas
Speaker 3: horned lizards. This one is from Lindsay. Lindsay says, gentlemen,
Speaker 3: longtime listener, thanks for the horny toad episode. US Texans
Speaker 3: love our horny toads with personal memories from childhood. This
Speaker 3: is a theme, isn't it. Yeah, Lindsay says, I know
Speaker 3: that TCU. I think that's Texas Christian University mascot horned
Speaker 3: frogs is one of the heavy researchers in their conservation.
Speaker 3: We have several species throughout the Chiuawan Desert. I'm supporting
Speaker 3: some local research on the mountain shorthorn in the Davis Mountains.
Speaker 3: Keep doing what you're doing, right on, y'all.
Speaker 2: Lindsay.
Speaker 3: PS, now here's a topic, SWITCHERU. I write this while
Speaker 3: watching Highlander two, the Renegade version. You've picked the wrong version, Lindsay,
Speaker 3: we go back in time and stop you.
Speaker 2: They don't make it easy, as we've discussed, to select
Speaker 2: the correct version.
Speaker 3: So yeah, but anyway, Lindsay says, and I ask myself,
Speaker 3: what on earth does this have to do with the original,
Speaker 3: and when does Clancy Brown show up? God to love
Speaker 3: raw Hide from Buckaroo BONDSI, maybe it's not coming through,
Speaker 3: but this email has a lot of line breaks in it,
Speaker 3: so it reads kind of like a poem.
Speaker 2: Nice.
Speaker 3: I had to look up who Clancy Brown was in
Speaker 3: Buckaroo BONSI. Unfortunately he is not one of the John's,
Speaker 3: not one of the alien guys, John Smallberry's or whatever
Speaker 3: he I guess works for Peter Weller.
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, it's been a long time stin. I've
Speaker 2: seen that one, but it has quite an ensemble cast.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but anyway, thank you, Lindsey. Clancy Brown never shows up,
Speaker 3: You're never going to get to him, and Iland just
Speaker 3: not in there. It's the sad facts.
Speaker 2: All right. Let's jump over to Ninja mail. This one
Speaker 2: comes to us from Mike. Mike says, Hey, guys, been
Speaker 2: loving the series on Ninja Just real quick note on
Speaker 2: Snake Eyes and storm Shadow from Gi Joe and Larry
Speaker 2: Hannah's long running Gi Joe comic series, Issue three oh
Speaker 2: eight just came out a few weeks ago. Storm Shadow
Speaker 2: isn't actually a villain. In his first appearances in the
Speaker 2: comic Storm Shadow went undercover in Cobra to find out
Speaker 2: who framed him for the murder of his Sinsey, the
Speaker 2: hard Master, but he's mostly been part of the Gijoe
Speaker 2: team since then. Ninja's have always been a big part
Speaker 2: of the comic series. Towards the end of the Marvel run,
Speaker 2: Hasbro went extra ninja crazy and started introducing a lot
Speaker 2: of ninja characters, even turning longtime characters like Scarlett and
Speaker 2: Stalker into ninjas. They even briefly put Snake Eye's name
Speaker 2: on the cover bigger than Gi Joe and featured a
Speaker 2: group called Ninja Force. And we have an image here
Speaker 2: and yeah, it's like Gi Joe starring and then huge
Speaker 2: banner Snake Eyes and Ninja Force. So it's like g
Speaker 2: I Joe presents Snake Guys?
Speaker 3: Now? Is this email a sort of semi correction to
Speaker 3: us talking about a one of the Ninjas and Gi
Speaker 3: Jo being good and the other being evil, And the
Speaker 3: idea is actually they were both primarily good, because you know,
Speaker 3: how can you have ninjas as the bad guys? When
Speaker 3: you're a kid, you just you want the ninjas to
Speaker 3: be on your team because you love them.
Speaker 2: They it seems like it ends up going this way.
Speaker 2: In the comic books, this would have been what the nineties. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so it does kind of back up what we were
Speaker 2: talking about though. Yeah, the kids want the Ninjas to
Speaker 2: be the good guys so much that even the bad
Speaker 2: Ninjas are going to eventually cross over. It kind of
Speaker 2: works that way anyway with any sort of cool villain.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, they show up at first, they're acting kind
Speaker 3: of mysterious and standoffish, but you know by the final
Speaker 3: act they're going to be a standing right alongside the hero.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I have to I have to admit I didn't.
Speaker 2: I never went too deep into the G I. Joe
Speaker 2: lore because at some point I saw the GI Joe
Speaker 2: movie that they put out. This would have been nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty seven's G I. Joe The Movie, And this is
Speaker 2: the one that had all sorts of like weird ideas
Speaker 2: in it, where there's like a place in like a
Speaker 2: place called Cobra Law and the Himalayas, and they are
Speaker 2: all these like grotesque monsters. And I don't know, maybe
Speaker 2: I just saw it too young of an age, because
Speaker 2: on the surface, all this sounds weird. And great, right,
Speaker 2: but it really like hit me the wrong way, and
Speaker 2: I'm like, I don't really don't like where they're going
Speaker 2: with this whole Gi Joe thing, and I kind of
Speaker 2: I kind of phased out of the franchise at that point.
Speaker 3: I think, really leaning into the utopian spiritual themes of
Speaker 3: the G I. Joe universe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there was like a lot of like weird
Speaker 2: body horror stuff in it. I don't know, I mean all,
Speaker 2: you know, obviously all things that I definitely came around to,
Speaker 2: but maybe I just wasn't ready for these ideas yet.
Speaker 2: In my Gi Joe animated motion pictures.
Speaker 3: I don't know if this is the movie or if
Speaker 3: it was just an episode of the two TV show,
Speaker 3: but a G I. Joe cartoon that really sticks in
Speaker 3: my mind from childhood was there. The the Joe's are
Speaker 3: being attacked by a bunch of you know, bat evil
Speaker 3: robots or something, and they're blasting them with their their
Speaker 3: laser guns, and the laser guns are having no effect
Speaker 3: on the robots. So one of the the Joe's, I
Speaker 3: guess it's like a tough guy, I want to say,
Speaker 3: Sergeant Slaughter, but I think that may have actually been
Speaker 3: a wrestler and not a G I Joe.
Speaker 2: It was both Oh okay, yeah.
Speaker 3: Okay, Sergeant's laughter or I don't know if that's really
Speaker 3: who it was. This like tough sergeant character is like,
Speaker 3: here's how we're going to defeat them. We're going to
Speaker 3: use our bare hands, like the energy weapons no effect.
Speaker 3: But they run in and they like rip the robots
Speaker 3: apart with their hands and that works.
Speaker 2: Nice. Yeah, I kind of forgot this sergeant Slaughter was
Speaker 2: was part of the whole franchise there, at least for
Speaker 2: a little bit, stands out in my mind. Maybe it
Speaker 2: was only like a few cameos, but I just assume
Speaker 2: he was just all G I Joe. I kind of
Speaker 2: sometimes forget that he was also a human being as well.
Speaker 3: But anyway, back to the main theme. I do think
Speaker 3: it's true that like the ninjas in Gi Joe have
Speaker 3: got to be the absolute core, the bullseye of the
Speaker 3: americanized pop culture ninja phenomenon. All right, I'm going to
Speaker 3: move on to some other emails that connect one of
Speaker 3: our historical show topics to some fictional media. So we
Speaker 3: just did a series on the war galleys of the
Speaker 3: ancient Mediterranean, especially the famous Trirem, which was used in
Speaker 3: naval battles as a ramming weapon. In the ship to
Speaker 3: ship combat, these ships would ram each other to try
Speaker 3: to damage and immobilize each other in battle. And Rob
Speaker 3: you ended up bringing up ramming between ships and a
Speaker 3: science fiction context.
Speaker 2: What was the specific thing you were talking about was
Speaker 2: a warhammer. I think in the third episode I brought
Speaker 2: up warhammer, but earlier I just was kind of spitball
Speaker 2: and I was thinking, well, hey, Star Trek has always
Speaker 2: essentially been naval combat transferred into a space scenario, so
Speaker 2: they had to have had some ramming speed going on
Speaker 2: at some point. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So we asked about that, and what do you know,
Speaker 3: multiple listeners got in touch to tell us about Star Trek.
Speaker 3: Who would have thought. So, this first message is from Jim,
Speaker 3: subject line Star Trek Ramming. Jim says, you asked for it.
Speaker 3: Here it is number one. In Star Trek First Contact,
Speaker 3: the Federation is fighting a borg Cube. Wharf is in
Speaker 3: command of the Defiant, a smaller ship from DS nine.
Speaker 3: I guess Deep Space nine correct, and the Defiant takes
Speaker 3: damage and Wharf declares ramming speed, but it never does
Speaker 3: because the Enterprise comes to the rescue. But the fact
Speaker 3: that he declared it means it's a thing.
Speaker 2: Seems key that it would be like a Klingon thing, right,
Speaker 2: kind of like your lastch effort. Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 3: Number two in Star Trek Nemesis Picard crashes the Enterprise
Speaker 3: into a Romulan ship called the Scimitar, heavily damaging both ships.
Speaker 3: This was not at warp speed, however. There was also
Speaker 3: an example in Star Wars The Last Jedi. Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: I remember this one spoiler for I don't know the movies,
Speaker 3: like seven years old at this point, but you know,
Speaker 3: a spoiler for pivotal plot moments. Laura Dern plays a
Speaker 3: character named Vice Admiral Holdo. She rams a Rebel ship
Speaker 3: into a Star Destroyer at hyperspeed, destroying both ships. Thanks
Speaker 3: for all the great shows, Jim, and then I'm going
Speaker 3: to quickly tack on another one here that we got
Speaker 3: from Jim in New Jersey. So a totally different Jim
Speaker 3: wrote in on the same subject, Robert, Joe, and JJ
Speaker 3: you asked about whether ramming ships were ever used in
Speaker 3: Star Trek. One story came to mind. It's from Star
Speaker 3: Trek Voyager the year of Hell, which was a two
Speaker 3: part episode. Captain Janeaway uses the Voyager as a ramming
Speaker 3: vessel when all other options have been eliminated, and then
Speaker 3: Jim attaches a clip to a video of this scene.
Speaker 3: So I went and looked at it. I've never seen
Speaker 3: any Star Trek Voyager really, so I don't know much
Speaker 3: of what's going on, but it appears this is a
Speaker 3: storyline in which the Starfleet ship is facing off against
Speaker 3: an enemy played by kurtwood Smith Clarence Bodiker from RoboCop.
Speaker 3: In this episode of Star Trek, he has some kind
Speaker 3: of time manipulation device and can reset to an earlier
Speaker 3: kind of save point anytime he loses.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 3: So it seems like mutual destruction is somehow the only
Speaker 3: way to break the loop and escape.
Speaker 2: Well, I just watched a couple of like pizza commercials
Speaker 2: on YouTube and then saw the ramming sequence, and I
Speaker 2: am getting the sense that ramming in these various spaceship scenarios,
Speaker 2: it is all or nothing. It's just a full speed,
Speaker 2: mutually assured just struction and not the carefully calculated procedure
Speaker 2: maneuver that we talked about with the tryrems. So it
Speaker 2: would be neat to see that version of space combat.
Speaker 3: I guess a difference would be that the ships in
Speaker 3: all of these scenes are not designed for ramming, whereas
Speaker 3: the tryream is it is built with ramming in mind,
Speaker 3: so it's constructed to be able to absorb the shock
Speaker 3: and survive a ramming maneuver to damage the other ship
Speaker 3: without taking critical damage itself. And generally space ships you
Speaker 3: don't think they're not designed that way, but I suppose
Speaker 3: you could make one like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, supposedly some of these ships in Warhammer. Again,
Speaker 2: I never played Battlefleet Gothic or any of the sub
Speaker 2: games that deal specifically with ship to ship combat, but
Speaker 2: I may have to dig into it and see if
Speaker 2: they're just doing an all or nothing ramming speed scenario
Speaker 2: or if they are exploring something that is again a
Speaker 2: little more nuanced and calculated, where you're kind of doing
Speaker 2: a controlled nudge to rupture the hull. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Also, I feel like this is not the first time
Speaker 3: we've gotten multiple different responses to Star Trek related questions
Speaker 3: from different listeners named Jim, do the gyms all track?
Speaker 2: Maybe? So? All right? This next one is more of
Speaker 2: a general or related response. This one comes to us
Speaker 2: from Lee Lee wrights in and says the following, Hello, Rob, Joe,
Speaker 2: and JJ, just listen to the first episode regarding ancient ores.
Speaker 2: Having spent summers on camp staff during high school and college,
Speaker 2: one of the subjects I taught was rowing. What you
Speaker 2: were saying about these types of rowing locks was correct.
Speaker 2: Our boats had the open type, basically a U shaped
Speaker 2: rest for the oars. They really don't facilitate keeping the
Speaker 2: oars in the boat. This is never more evident than
Speaker 2: during a class of ten or more twelve to sixteen
Speaker 2: year old boy scouts, many of which whom have never
Speaker 2: been in a boat. The technique of turning the blade
Speaker 2: of the ore so that it is parallel to the
Speaker 2: water surface is called feathering. Yes, it cuts wind resistance,
Speaker 2: but it can also allow the blade to skim the
Speaker 2: top of an errant wave in rough water. Pinlocks fix
Speaker 2: the ore to the boat. Like you said, this could
Speaker 2: provide an advantage to ancient seafares by not requiring a
Speaker 2: multitude of spares should ores fall overboard. The trade off
Speaker 2: might be some speed. Looking forward to the next episode, Sincerely.
Speaker 3: You know one thing we didn't get into.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Maybe you read about this in that book you were reading,
Speaker 3: Rob but about whether spare ores would have been the
Speaker 3: thing in the war galleys of the ancient Mediterranean, So
Speaker 3: like if you're on a trirem and you drop your
Speaker 3: ore into the ocean. In fact, I don't even even
Speaker 3: know if that's possible. Maybe they were secured to the
Speaker 3: boat in some way with a pin like Lee is
Speaker 3: talking about. I don't know, But did they carry spares?
Speaker 3: I know one of the techniques I read about in
Speaker 3: addition to ramming the hull of the boat was to
Speaker 3: sort of go against the side of the boat and
Speaker 3: try to shear its oars off. So if that happened,
Speaker 3: did you have spars on board to, you know, to
Speaker 3: kind of quickly try to replace the ones you'd lost.
Speaker 2: This is a great question. I'm going to have to
Speaker 2: bust out the ancient mariners and see if case gets
Speaker 2: into it or not. But yeah, it seems like you
Speaker 2: would run the risk if not losing them, because in theory,
Speaker 2: you'd have a pretty crack team here that would not
Speaker 2: lose their oars. This would not be the twelve to
Speaker 2: sixteen year old boy scouts. I've never been in a boat,
Speaker 2: but in a combat scenario. Certainly it seems like you, yeah,
Speaker 2: you could get splintered oars, broken oars, and then what
Speaker 2: are you going to do in order to restore your power?
Speaker 2: Or is it one of those situations where again you're
Speaker 2: getting into that calculus of not weighing the boat down
Speaker 2: and you're just kind of going with all right, we
Speaker 2: just need to make sure that it's as you know,
Speaker 2: that everything is optimized as much as possible, and you're
Speaker 2: gonna have to worry about splintered ores when and if
Speaker 2: that occurs. All right.
Speaker 3: This next message is from yet another gem, the Gym's overfloweth.
Speaker 3: This is subject line Rowboat mosh Pit. Listening to your
Speaker 3: episodes on rowing and wanted to let you know that
Speaker 3: I discovered that some of the audience for Viking metal
Speaker 3: bands will often sit down on the ground and row
Speaker 3: on mass and then Jim attaches several videos of this
Speaker 3: taking place. I watched one of these. It's at a
Speaker 3: concert of the melodic death metal band Amon m Arth.
Speaker 3: I don't know if I'm saying that right, but they're
Speaker 3: like a I think a Swedish melodic death metal band.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, I'm not familiar with them.
Speaker 3: The name of the band is the name of Mount
Speaker 3: Doom from Tolkien in like one of the languages of Tolkien.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I just pulled up some of these videos as well.
Speaker 2: I was not familiar with this, but as someone who
Speaker 2: often likes certain types of metal but has never ever
Speaker 2: wanted to be in a mosh pit, I applaud this. Yes,
Speaker 2: this is a far better situation for someone like me
Speaker 2: like I would rather be in there pretending to row
Speaker 2: a boat.
Speaker 3: I totally agree. Yeah, so you're pretending to be in
Speaker 3: like a Viking galley instead of pretending to fight one another. Yeah.
Speaker 3: But to describe for those who can't see it for themselves, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's like, instead of a mash pit down on the
Speaker 3: floor in front of the stage, it has just tons
Speaker 3: of people lined up and they are pretending to row,
Speaker 3: and they're they're chanting row on the beat of the
Speaker 3: song as the band is playing. So yeah, again, much
Speaker 3: better than a fighting mashpit in my opinion. But this
Speaker 3: is really interesting to me because it's reverse engineering the
Speaker 3: idea of using the steady beat of a piece of
Speaker 3: music to time the power strokes on a war galley.
Speaker 3: So here they are recreationally rowing on the beat to
Speaker 3: enhance their enjoyment of music. And this makes me think
Speaker 3: about how something we didn't much get into in the
Speaker 3: episodes on these ancient oar ships was the idea of
Speaker 3: using music or drums to synchronize the rowing of the crew.
Speaker 3: In movies, these ships are often depicted with pounding drums.
Speaker 3: You know, they've got somebody with this big, tempany looking
Speaker 3: kind of drum just pounding up and down to keep
Speaker 3: everybody in sync. But I decided to check and see
Speaker 3: if that was truly the case, like, do we have
Speaker 3: evidence that ships had these drums like this? And apparently
Speaker 3: the answer is no, there is not much evidence for
Speaker 3: the use of drums. In fact, I found some evidence
Speaker 3: to the contrary. I was reading an article that had
Speaker 3: some reporting on experiments carried out by the Trirem Trust.
Speaker 3: To remember, Rob, you were talking about this in the episode.
Speaker 3: These were the people who built the Olympius, the floating hypothesis.
Speaker 3: Do you want to do a quick refresher on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. The basic idea here being that we don't
Speaker 2: really know much for certain about the tryrems. We have,
Speaker 2: you know, very scant physical evidence. We have descriptions in
Speaker 2: ancient literature, but that's about it. So the idea was, well,
Speaker 2: let's take what we know, let's build this floating hypothesis.
Speaker 2: Let's try and build one based on the limited information,
Speaker 2: and at least then we have a starting point and
Speaker 2: we can test it out and then have these various
Speaker 2: disagreements and considerations about how much this differs from a
Speaker 2: possible reality.
Speaker 3: Right, And so one of the cool things about this
Speaker 3: ship again, we don't know that this is exactly how
Speaker 3: the ancient trirems worked, but it seems probably pretty close.
Speaker 3: And so they were able to run human experiments with it,
Speaker 3: like to not just test the structure, but to test
Speaker 3: how the operation of such a ship would work. And
Speaker 3: so they experimented with different ways of using music or
Speaker 3: sound to synchronize the crew. Now I read in this
Speaker 3: article that they used like electronic loudspeakers to synchronize the
Speaker 3: rowing strokes. But of course, you know, ancient Greek armies
Speaker 3: and ancient Phoenician armies and stuff would not have or
Speaker 3: navy excuse me, navies would not have had electronic speakers,
Speaker 3: of course, So like, how did they synchronize everyone? And
Speaker 3: the trials that they conducted found that drums as well
Speaker 3: as singing and read pipes were all ineffective. They did
Speaker 3: not really work to synchronize the crew, And strangely, the
Speaker 3: type of musical organization they found that worked the best
Speaker 3: was communal humming. Humming was the best way. Humming by
Speaker 3: the whole crew, everybody humming together was the best way
Speaker 3: to synchronize rowers without modern technology, and it improved ship
Speaker 3: velocity by more than ten percent.
Speaker 2: That's interesting. I mean, I guess the thing about humming
Speaker 2: is pretty much everybody can do it. I guess I
Speaker 2: say that with the confidence of someone who's not researched it.
Speaker 2: There may be people who cannot hum, but I don't know.
Speaker 2: It makes a lot of sense to me. And of
Speaker 2: course you don't need to drag some drums or any
Speaker 2: additional even so much as a reed flute aboard the vessel.
Speaker 2: At that point, it's the internal instrumentation. And I mean,
Speaker 2: and again it ties directly into the human engine powering
Speaker 2: the thing.
Speaker 3: But to come back on the other side, in this article,
Speaker 3: they quote a scholar who we talked about in The
Speaker 3: Warship's episode named Boris Rankov, who is a classic scholar
Speaker 3: and was involved in the creation and also works as
Speaker 3: like a rower he's like a trained oarsman, but worked
Speaker 3: on the Trireme Trust and Rankov says, humming worked really
Speaker 3: well in the experiments, but there's no literary record of
Speaker 3: that actually happening in history, so this is not something
Speaker 3: we're told that the ancient Greeks ever did. Fascinating to
Speaker 3: think about, though, like why humming as a group would
Speaker 3: work better than a drum beat a or you know,
Speaker 3: general singing or music.
Speaker 2: Interesting. Yeah, I wonder if if we get there's an
Speaker 2: episode in that, you know, we could come back and
Speaker 2: do episode on humming. I think we did one on whistling.
Speaker 2: Yeah we did.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, where we talked about like whistle languages and stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, bookmarkt for later. Yeah, all right, let's see. Here's
Speaker 2: the here's another one dealing with our episodes on burning hair.
Speaker 2: This one comes from John. John says, Hello, Robert, Joe,
Speaker 2: and JJ. I have a couple of childhood memories that
Speaker 2: I thought might be worth sharing. First, regarding aliens, Note
Speaker 2: this was a long time ago, in any part of
Speaker 2: this memory could be flawed. I remember, as an adolescent
Speaker 2: reading a comic about alien xenomorph exterminators and presumably these
Speaker 2: are these are human exterminators, by the way, who infiltrated
Speaker 2: and destroyed it there the Xenomorph's colonies. As I understood it,
Speaker 2: aliens only responded to a specific scent that humans released
Speaker 2: when they are afraid. So the characters in the comic
Speaker 2: book took a drug that completely numbed their ability to
Speaker 2: experience fear and could then flamethrow their way through the
Speaker 2: alien colony with essential no resistance. Once they'd been on
Speaker 2: the job for a while, they stopped taking the drug
Speaker 2: because they didn't feel any fear anymore even without it.
Speaker 2: I always thought it was a cool and extreme version
Speaker 2: of fake it till you make it. Doesn't sound cannon,
Speaker 2: but I enjoyed the idea of it. Wow.
Speaker 3: Interesting that there's just like so much secondary expanded alien
Speaker 3: universe lore that I have no idea of, and I
Speaker 3: feel like I'm like an alien super fan, but I
Speaker 3: only really know like the Core movies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, there's tons of it in the comic books,
Speaker 2: various novelizations. I was recently kind of getting up to
Speaker 2: speed on some of the recent novels that have come out,
Speaker 2: and some of them are pretty well regarded, so I
Speaker 2: don't know, I have to dig deeper. If anyone out
Speaker 2: there has a favorite write in, I'd love to hear
Speaker 2: from you. But yeah, I also agree that this may
Speaker 2: not be canon, but it's an interesting concept, like the
Speaker 2: sort of concept that you could imagine working outside of
Speaker 2: the Alien franchise. You know, is sort of an analysis
Speaker 2: of fear.
Speaker 3: Well, it kind of reminds me of something that shows
Speaker 3: up in like some vampire movies, where like the vampire
Speaker 3: repellent properties of a cross are only effective if the
Speaker 3: person wielding it has faith or something. Yeah, I know
Speaker 3: it's like that in Fright Night, but I think it's
Speaker 3: like that in some other media as well.
Speaker 2: All right, anyway, he continues here. Secondly, regarding burning hair,
Speaker 2: I have a memory of returning to a family friend
Speaker 2: gathering after going outside to light the grill and being
Speaker 2: accused of having put on mascaro while I was out.
Speaker 2: Turns out I had sinned my eyelashes, leading them to
Speaker 2: look really thick. I seem to recall whenever I saw
Speaker 2: hair burn, it always left a bulb on the end
Speaker 2: of the hair. Anyway, you know how they say you
Speaker 2: shouldn't use gasoline to light a grill. Uh huh, Well
Speaker 2: you really shouldn't use gasoline to relight a grill that's
Speaker 2: still pretty hot. I'm pretty sure that using gasoline was
Speaker 2: fairly common practice in my household. Who but I don't
Speaker 2: think i'd ever tried it in a re lighting scenario.
Speaker 2: I poured the gas on and nothing happened. So I
Speaker 2: lit a match and whoosh, the fumes lit up ediately
Speaker 2: from a good distance away. Lesson learned. Thanks for the
Speaker 2: insightful and thought provoking podcasts as always, Hi, Renata, yours John.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, this listener John has gives a shout out
Speaker 3: to another friend who's a listener, Renata, who also writes.
Speaker 2: In a lot Well, definitely, yeah. Take John's advice here,
Speaker 2: and please do not use gasoline to start your fires.
Speaker 3: In fact, I don't even for less danger related reasons.
Speaker 3: I don't even recommend using lighter fluid as a great
Speaker 3: way to start a grill. The chimney starters are great
Speaker 3: if you're doing a charcoal grill. They work fantastic. It's
Speaker 3: the best way to go.
Speaker 2: I agree. I don't do a lot of charcoal grilling,
Speaker 2: but when I do, I use the tower and it
Speaker 2: works and it's fast and he can depend on it.
Speaker 2: So no flammable liquids are required. Yeah, I mean you
Speaker 2: got to be safe with those two obviously, but we.
Speaker 3: Think anything that's on fire, yeah, but limit your dangers well.
Speaker 3: To clarify apart from safety considerations, I would also just
Speaker 3: say that in my experience, I feel like lighter fluid
Speaker 3: can sometimes kind of impart some unpleasant aromas.
Speaker 2: To the food.
Speaker 3: But yeah, Jimny starter a little bit of newspaper in
Speaker 3: the bottom.
Speaker 2: You're golden. Can you dig it? Can you dig it?
Speaker 2: Can you dig it? Can you dig it? Can you
Speaker 2: dig it?
Speaker 3: Okay, we do have a lot of messages still to
Speaker 3: get to, but Carney, our mailbot is over here, just
Speaker 3: repeatedly asking in a digitized voice whether or not we
Speaker 3: can dig it, And so I think we are being
Speaker 3: asked to proceed to the Warriors' responses. All right, all right,
Speaker 3: This first message is from Maxim. Maxim says, Hello, Robert
Speaker 3: and Joe. First of all, thank you for all the
Speaker 3: excellent content and all your shows in various forms. I
Speaker 3: only casually tune into Weird House as I am only
Speaker 3: a mild cinophile, But when you're doing The Warriors, I
Speaker 3: am down like Charlie Brown during your most recent Weird
Speaker 3: House episode about The Warriors, you made a statement about
Speaker 3: how the film seems to take place in a slightly
Speaker 3: alternate world, a not quite New York, New York. I
Speaker 3: think you missed an interesting comparison John Wick.
Speaker 2: Ah, I didn't think about this, and I've only seen
Speaker 2: the first John Wick movie.
Speaker 3: Oh same here. I've also only seen the first one,
Speaker 3: so I from what I understand, I think the lore
Speaker 3: gets more complex as it goes on. Okay, anyway, Maxim continues,
Speaker 3: Not only is John Wick four an obvious homage to
Speaker 3: The Warriors, with everything from a DJ calling out the
Speaker 3: local Paris gangs to attack Wick too the final duel
Speaker 3: at Sunrise, but I also think that an argument could
Speaker 3: be made that both films exist in the same grungy universe.
Speaker 3: If we accept that both John Wick and The Warriors
Speaker 3: happened in the same universe, then The Warriors is not
Speaker 3: just an excellent cult classic, it is cemented as a
Speaker 3: John Wick prequel. Was Cyrus trying to join the High Table?
Speaker 3: I don't know what that is. I assume that's a
Speaker 3: John Wick thing where the Gangs of New York looking
Speaker 3: to elevate their service. Was this the origin of the
Speaker 3: League of assassins that exist in john Wick. Was john
Speaker 3: Wick one of the orphans? Or if we really want
Speaker 3: to get crazy, is john Wick the love child of
Speaker 3: Swan and Mercy. This is the crossover experience we need,
Speaker 3: far more than any DC Marvel multiverse shenanigans. Just wanted
Speaker 3: to share my thoughts and see what you thought about
Speaker 3: this potentially better than Marvel ip crossover. Also, are there
Speaker 3: any other films you think might fit into this shared
Speaker 3: universe theory? Ooh, thanks Maxim. I wish I could comment
Speaker 3: on this more having more john Wick knowledge, but I
Speaker 3: just haven't made it to the rest of those movies yet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, saying I only saw the first one,
Speaker 2: he Avenged his Dog, and I thought it was over,
Speaker 2: but I guess there was more story to tell there.
Speaker 3: I've been assured that nothing bad happens to a dog
Speaker 3: in the other movies, because that was kind of hard
Speaker 3: for me to get past than the first one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know, I guess having not seen the
Speaker 2: other john Wick movies, I'm also reminded of some other
Speaker 2: movies that I haven't seen any of, and that being
Speaker 2: the Purge movies. On the surface, Again, as someone who
Speaker 2: has not watched them. It seems like the Purge shares
Speaker 2: like some similarities with the Warriors universe in the sense that,
Speaker 2: I don't know, you have a like a slightly alternate
Speaker 2: reality affecting the way a lot of street level crime
Speaker 2: is going down. I don't know. I was thinking about
Speaker 2: that because I did just watch the new twenty twenty
Speaker 2: four movie Jackpot that has Aquafina and John Cena in it,
Speaker 2: which I thought was an amusing viewing, you know, pretty
Speaker 2: fun movie, but gets into some of those ideas, like,
Speaker 2: you know, those sort of what if scenarios that end
Speaker 2: up having defining what the street level violence looks like.
Speaker 3: I think the fact about the Warriors universe that would
Speaker 3: be most important to fit with another universe is the
Speaker 3: fact that the Bangs each wear costumes. That's like the
Speaker 3: core difference is that this is a world where it's
Speaker 3: just normal to have a gang dressed up as mimes
Speaker 3: and a gang dressed up as baseball players. That's like,
Speaker 3: that's a particular kind of alternate universe, not totally implausible
Speaker 3: in reality, it's just not our reality. So what does
Speaker 3: that fit with I'm not exactly sure, but it's close.
Speaker 3: Oh and just one more thing to add on to
Speaker 3: a maxim's email. Here Marcus wrote in with overlapping subject
Speaker 3: matter to say John Wick four pays homage to the Warriors,
Speaker 3: with the radio DJ using the same message, showing only
Speaker 3: the tight shot of the mouth and says, obviously it's
Speaker 3: not like Lynn Thigpen as she's no longer with us,
Speaker 3: but this this DJ is announcing the increasing award on
Speaker 3: the on the hit for John Wick throughout the movie.
Speaker 3: So it sounds like this is an open, conscious play
Speaker 3: on the Warriors, not just slightly similar.
Speaker 2: Interesting, all right, there's another one. This comes to us
Speaker 2: from Andrew. Andrew writes and it says, Hi, Robert, Joe
Speaker 2: and JJ has always great work. While I like to
Speaker 2: enjoy your core episodes on my commute, tuning into Weird
Speaker 2: House Cinema has become my favorite part of Friday Night,
Speaker 2: your recent discussion of The Warriors struck an interesting chord
Speaker 2: for me. You briefly mentioned the two thousand and five
Speaker 2: video game adaptation, but didn't spend much time on it.
Speaker 2: That makes sense for a movie podcast, but it's worth
Speaker 2: noting that the game was very well received in its
Speaker 2: time and has been subsequently re released on newer consoles
Speaker 2: over the years. While the film is rightfully considered a
Speaker 2: cult classic, I suspect most people my age are younger
Speaker 2: who are familiar with the Warriors came to it through
Speaker 2: the game instead, And this makes sense. I think we
Speaker 2: mentioned it was like a Rockstar Games release, so you know,
Speaker 2: we've seen a lot of older film franchises re explored
Speaker 2: through video games, but this would have been a rock
Speaker 2: Star game. This would have been a big and I
Speaker 2: was just kind of out of gaming, I think at
Speaker 2: that time, and not really plugged into what was happening.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: We were just chatting about it in the episode, and
Speaker 3: it struck me as kind of strange in the moment
Speaker 3: that they would adapt a game from a movie that
Speaker 3: was like twenty five or thirty years old and not
Speaker 3: like a recent release. That just seemed like a weird
Speaker 3: thing to me. But then the more I thought about it,
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, I guess that's not all that unusual.
Speaker 3: In fact, one of my favorite movies and favorite video
Speaker 3: games has been like that. Alien Isolation is like a
Speaker 3: recent console, a recent generation video game adaptation, not adaptation
Speaker 3: of the first Alien movie, but it's basically a game
Speaker 3: sequel to the original Alien from seventy nine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then I believe they did have DLC for
Speaker 2: it where they brought back I think pretty much all
Speaker 2: the living cast from the first Alien movie to do voices,
Speaker 2: and you had like the you know in Nostromo scenario
Speaker 2: to play out. I never actually played it. I guess
Speaker 2: I've got it on the system there. I should fire
Speaker 2: it up, But I only played through the core game.
Speaker 3: I know what you're talking about. From what I recall.
Speaker 3: That was not like a like a full game length,
Speaker 3: story driven kind of thing. It was more kind of
Speaker 3: like a little mini mini game or something.
Speaker 2: Well even better, I'd have less time these days of
Speaker 2: light times, so if it's short, I'm in all right anyway.
Speaker 2: This lister Mail continues talking about the Warriors video game
Speaker 2: adaptation from two thousand and five. Plot Wise, it starts
Speaker 2: earlier than the film, but catches up about halfway through.
Speaker 2: From there, it's essentially a playable version of the movie,
Speaker 2: hitting the same story beats and taking the player through
Speaker 2: the same set pieces. Having watched the movie sometime after
Speaker 2: playing through it, it's easy to see how naturally the
Speaker 2: game evolved from the film, which was on some level
Speaker 2: just a string of combat encounters. You also mentioned the
Speaker 2: need for more movies with uniform street gangs, and it
Speaker 2: made me think of one of my favorites, twenty tens
Speaker 2: Boon Raku. Like The Warriors, it features a few bands
Speaker 2: of well coordinated Ruffians and an escalating series of fights. Stylistically,
Speaker 2: it feels alternatingly like a stage play, a comic book,
Speaker 2: and a video game, but it all hangs together pretty well.
Speaker 2: It's also got a pretty stack cast, including Woody Harrelson,
Speaker 2: Demi Moore, Josh hartnett, Ron Peerlman, and the absolutely incomparable
Speaker 2: vocal talent of Mike Patton. I wouldn't say it's a
Speaker 2: great movie, but it is deeply, delightfully weird. I recommend it.
Speaker 2: Thanks as always for all your hard work, Andrew.
Speaker 3: You know I looked up a few screenshots from this movie,
Speaker 3: and a couple of them kind of reminded me of
Speaker 3: another movie from years ago now that I enjoyed, which
Speaker 3: was Stephen Chow's Kung Fu Hustle, which does have some
Speaker 3: vaguely uniformed gangs in it. I think we only ever
Speaker 3: see two, and one of them we only see at
Speaker 3: the very beginning of the movie. So primarily there's only
Speaker 3: one gang in the film, but it struck me as
Speaker 3: the kind of universe where I don't know, if they
Speaker 3: were to make more Kung Fu Hustle movies, there would
Speaker 3: be there could be more gangs that had weird uniforms,
Speaker 3: like a gang of mimes would fit in in that world. Okay,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna round things off with a part of an
Speaker 3: email from our listener, Jeff. This is a great email,
Speaker 3: but it's very long, gets into a lot of different
Speaker 3: stuff from different episodes, So I'm just gonna mention a
Speaker 3: couple of things from the beginning of it. Jeff says, Hey, guys,
Speaker 3: when I was listening to Joe explain that the distinct
Speaker 3: smell of burning hair is caused by sulfur, my first
Speaker 3: thought was, I'm made of sulfur. What the heck am
Speaker 3: I eating that's full of sulfur. I didn't recall ever
Speaker 3: seeing a sports drink advertised now with more sulfur, or
Speaker 3: being told to eat a banana because it's full of
Speaker 3: healthy sulfur. But then I thought about the smell of
Speaker 3: rotting eggs and asparagus pa and quickly realized I must
Speaker 3: be consuming sulfur. Every Day, thanks to the listener for
Speaker 3: explaining the connection to amino acids. This is a reference
Speaker 3: to a previous Listener Mail episode in which our correspondent
Speaker 3: Ahmed got into the sulfur bonds that can be found
Speaker 3: in the amino acid cysteine, and that the breaking of
Speaker 3: these bonds is responsible for these sulfur smells that are
Speaker 3: released when you burn certain types of proteins and things
Speaker 3: like that. But anyway, Jeff also says, regarding pop culture
Speaker 3: representations of Ninja's I wanted to call attention to the
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty eight arcade Beat Them Up game Bad Dudes
Speaker 3: Versus Dragon Ninja. It's got a self aware amusing eighty's motif,
Speaker 3: and to the extent that there was a plot. The
Speaker 3: game explains quote this is in all caps. By the way,
Speaker 3: rampant ninja related crimes these days. White House is not
Speaker 3: the exception. Once you start the game, it asks President
Speaker 3: Ronnie has been kidnapped by the ninjas. Are you a
Speaker 3: bad enough dude to rescue Ronnie? And then after that,
Speaker 3: Jeff says, you just start hitting and kicking everything that moves.
Speaker 3: I remember this, though I remember the words differently. I
Speaker 3: believe you that you're correct to Jeff. I remember it
Speaker 3: as like, are you a bad enough dude to rescue
Speaker 3: the President?
Speaker 2: Wow? I don't remember this one at all.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wonder if there were different versions it was
Speaker 3: there one that was specifically Ronnie and another one that's like,
Speaker 3: let's not name drop him, let's just call it the President.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 3: And also at the end of Jeff's email, there's a
Speaker 3: digression about the theme music to Mortal Kombat, which we
Speaker 3: talked about extensively in the Weird House Cinema episode on
Speaker 3: the movie from the nineties, and Jeff says the Mortal
Speaker 3: Kombat theme was one of his go to albums for
Speaker 3: doom slash quake land parties. I guess this would be
Speaker 3: in the nineties. I can only imagine the vibes. It
Speaker 3: sounds like Mountain dew and Dorito's.
Speaker 2: All part of a balanced diet. But thank you so much, Jeff.
Speaker 2: All Right, well, we're going to go ahead and close
Speaker 2: up the mail bag here today. Thank you Carney the
Speaker 2: mail Bot for helping us with this. Hall We'll be
Speaker 2: back in the future. For the time being, we're going
Speaker 2: to continue with this schedule. Kind of gives us a
Speaker 2: little breather. In between some of our multi episode series
Speaker 2: a chance to catch up in that regard and then
Speaker 2: also allow the mail bag to accumulate. So in the meantime,
Speaker 2: feel free to write in though if you hear a
Speaker 2: new episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind or Weird
Speaker 2: House Cinema that you have thoughts on you want to
Speaker 2: provide some feedback right in, We'll read it and we
Speaker 2: might just include it on a future episode of listener mail.
Speaker 2: And yeah, and if you have ideas about what future
Speaker 2: episodes of our core episodes you should consist of you
Speaker 2: have topic suggestions, write in those are fair game as well.
Speaker 2: And hey, if you have thoughts in an old episode
Speaker 2: right in as well. We would love to hear from you.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.
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