WEBVTT - From the Vault: The Fartonomicon 0:00:05.760 --> 0:00:07.840 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name 0:00:07.880 --> 0:00:10.479 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And today we're 0:00:10.520 --> 0:00:13.520 going to contemplate the age old question what is a 0:00:13.600 --> 0:00:16.160 fart that's right? And to answer this question, we are 0:00:16.200 --> 0:00:20.720 going to open up the fartonomicon. This is a vault. 0:00:20.960 --> 0:00:25.280 This is old episode. We did this one April seventeen. 0:00:25.960 --> 0:00:27.880 It's a pretty fun one. We're just talking about the 0:00:27.960 --> 0:00:32.519 science of afflatus, where it comes from, what it is, 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:36.040 why doth it smell? Et cetera, and uh and as 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:38.400 I recall, there's a really fun sort of stinger at 0:00:38.440 --> 0:00:41.160 the end of this episode. Let's wander on into the stink. 0:00:44.560 --> 0:00:47.400 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:56.520 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:56.640 --> 0:00:59.600 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And Robert, 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:01.760 let's not dally up a bit. We've got to get 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:04.120 right into it today because I know you are ripping 0:01:04.160 --> 0:01:08.560 to talk about the connection between demonology and flatulence. That's right, 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:11.560 I mean, it's it's it's hidden in the title itself, right, 0:01:11.640 --> 0:01:15.000 the fartonomicon. We're going to be discussing, not only the 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:19.720 actual science of farts. But this, this fascinating connection between 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:22.679 demonology and flatulence. And I want to note by the 0:01:22.680 --> 0:01:25.959 way that the word fart predates flatulence and goes back 0:01:26.000 --> 0:01:28.160 at least to the fourteenth century. And of course the 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:32.680 reality of human flatulence is is far older than humanity, 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:36.600 of course it is, and it goes deep, deep into time, 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:40.759 just as demons seem to do. Uh So, Yeah, demonology 0:01:41.040 --> 0:01:43.399 does seem to have a whole lot of farting in it. 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:44.960 And this is one of the funny things. You know. 0:01:45.000 --> 0:01:48.320 When I was growing up, I was taught at church 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:52.120 not to say cuss words, and cuss words included a 0:01:52.120 --> 0:01:56.760 lot of potty language and words for defecation and things 0:01:56.800 --> 0:01:59.120 like that. But if you go back into say the 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:02.040 Renaissance or the medieval period before that, you will actually 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:06.240 find a lot of pious holy men writing about theological 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:10.000 topics who are also quite potty mouthed. Yes that they 0:02:10.040 --> 0:02:12.280 have their head, They have their head both in the 0:02:12.320 --> 0:02:16.000 heavens and in the toilet at the same time. Yes, well, 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:18.839 that connection between heaven and the toilet is something we'll 0:02:18.840 --> 0:02:22.280 discuss here. You know. One of my my favorite accounts 0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:25.120 certain this of course, is a medieval account from one 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:28.240 of the great works of medieval literature, and particularly Italian 0:02:28.280 --> 0:02:33.440 medieval literature, UH, Dante's Inferno, of course, uh to refresh everyone, 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:37.200 of course. In in Dante's Inferno, Dante himself is guided 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:42.359 by the deceased poet Virgil through Hell, through the underworld 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:44.799 in a journey that will eventually take him back up 0:02:44.880 --> 0:02:48.079 to Paradise. Now, I love the Inferno, but I honestly 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:51.519 did not remember the farting segments. Oh man, the Inferno. 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:53.960 So Robert, you're gonna you're gonna have to illuminate me, 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:56.840 educate me on the farting. All right, well, I'm gonna 0:02:56.840 --> 0:02:59.840 set the stage here. Here we have our duo venturing 0:02:59.840 --> 0:03:02.960 in to the Malaboga, the as a region of the 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:05.679 Hell with all of these uh, these these pits, these 0:03:05.720 --> 0:03:09.959 boulders in which various tortures are taking place and roaming 0:03:10.000 --> 0:03:14.200 about are the Malibranchia, the the evil clause. There is 0:03:14.240 --> 0:03:17.320 a group of demons that are patrolling about and you know, 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:20.640 torturing uh as part of their job. And they all 0:03:20.720 --> 0:03:27.120 have fabulous names like Scarmiglion, which means troublemaker, and Malacotah, 0:03:27.320 --> 0:03:30.080 which means evil tale, and he's apparently the leader of 0:03:30.120 --> 0:03:33.160 the group. So I'm going to read just a bit 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:36.480 here from this encounter. Oh me, what is it, master, 0:03:36.600 --> 0:03:39.640 that I see pray? Let us go? I said, without 0:03:39.680 --> 0:03:42.880 an escort, If thou knowest how since for myself I 0:03:42.920 --> 0:03:46.480 asked none. If thou art as observant as thy want is, 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:49.840 dost thou not see that they do nash their teeth 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:53.600 and with their brows are threatening woe to us. And 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:56.720 he to me quote, I will not have the fear 0:03:57.120 --> 0:03:59.840 Let them nash on according to their fancy, because they 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:03.560 do it for those boiling wretches along the left hand dike, 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:07.120 they wheeled about, but first had each one thrust his 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:10.320 tongue between his teeth toward their leader for a signal, 0:04:10.880 --> 0:04:14.200 and he had made a trumpet of his rump, trumpet 0:04:14.280 --> 0:04:17.120 of his rump. That is like the ultimate hell signal. 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:23.320 Now we see that kind of blasphemous behavior also in 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:26.760 the Monty Python animations. You know, in Monty Python and 0:04:26.800 --> 0:04:29.960 the Holy Grail, there's a scene depicting like cartoon versions 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:34.120 of the heavens, and it definitely includes people playing musical 0:04:34.160 --> 0:04:38.600 instruments with their butts and then of course, I can't 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:42.559 help but think of the French insult, uh I fart 0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:45.800 in your general direction. Oh yeah, there's that too. The 0:04:45.839 --> 0:04:49.680 funny thing about about this trumpet of his rump business 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:53.640 is that scholars have actually argued for more than a century. 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:55.919 It seems like the last century has really been the 0:04:55.920 --> 0:04:57.960 period in which this has been a matter of scholarly 0:04:58.000 --> 0:05:00.840 debate over whether this is supposed to funny or not. 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:04.040 Why would it not be funny? I know, I mean 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:08.039 I vaguely remember my college Dante professor thinking it was 0:05:08.080 --> 0:05:11.840 funny and generally enjoying the humor that is to be 0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:15.200 found throughout Inferno. Especially things get less funny as you 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:17.400 get up to towards a paradise. But there there are 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:20.520 plenty of moments that I think we can legitimately say 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:24.240 are funny within Inferno. Yeah. Well, I mean it's it's 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:27.880 definitely there. In the same time that Dante is uh 0:05:28.279 --> 0:05:33.080 depicting and sometimes very lavish and scruciating detail the terrors 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:36.120 and tortures of Hell, he sometimes also seems to be 0:05:36.160 --> 0:05:40.080 sort of satirizing the foibles of humanity. Yeah, and skewering 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:42.919 his personal enemies. Yes. Yes, So for instance, those demon 0:05:43.040 --> 0:05:46.600 names that I mentioned earlier, like Scarmiglian. Apparently these these 0:05:46.680 --> 0:05:50.160 names are plays upon various family names that that Dante 0:05:50.240 --> 0:05:53.240 took issue with as well. Right now, in general, we 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:55.680 should add there there's a lot of butt action when 0:05:55.720 --> 0:05:58.720 it comes to Christian demonology. Lots of demons speak from 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:02.360 their butts, they seal packs with their butts, and of 0:06:02.360 --> 0:06:05.160 course they're all about doing things too human butts in 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:07.960 hell depending on the depictions. Uh. And you can have 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:10.760 a field day teasing apart all of the various elements 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:13.800 wound up in this sort of butt centric myth making. Folks, 0:06:13.839 --> 0:06:16.120 if you haven't already figured it out, this episode is 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:18.800 gonna be heavy with a lot of like butts and flatulence. 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:21.880 So if you're not interested, uh, you may be warned 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:24.600 to tune out now because it will continue, Yes it will. 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:27.839 It will not stop until we reach the end. Uh. 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:30.520 So another thing I should point out this idea that 0:06:30.760 --> 0:06:33.200 you know, this link between demons and flatuents. There is 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:36.960 this idea that you see where demons use flatuents against 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:40.000 the faithful. I did run across this account of fourth 0:06:40.040 --> 0:06:44.240 century Christian monk Evagoras of Pontus warning that demons may 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:48.800 bloat the faithful with flatulence to distract them from religious observation. 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:52.000 That is an insidious tactic. Did that go in the 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:56.000 screwtape letters? That's that's smart, it should have. Incidentally, I 0:06:56.040 --> 0:06:59.320 did run across a contemporary right up where I think 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:02.359 the the that was arguing for the demonic powers of 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:05.440 yoga and how it was. It was one of these 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:07.520 wonderful accounts where the like, yes, I too have been 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:10.240 to a yoga class, and I thought it's connections to 0:07:11.080 --> 0:07:14.640 to a non Christian religion was was harmless. And then 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:17.560 they talk about some of the the signs that you 0:07:17.600 --> 0:07:20.280 may have demon e spirit any and one of them 0:07:20.320 --> 0:07:24.640 is flat mns. Really yes, really, yes. It is kind 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:28.040 of odd to see in the modern day people associating 0:07:28.080 --> 0:07:30.880 an evil spirit or kind of Uh. I don't know. 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:34.280 I feel like generally the idea of an evil spirit 0:07:34.360 --> 0:07:37.080 has been more abstracted these days, but it is very 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:39.480 true if you go back into history, there's a very 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:42.200 physical kind of quality to it that it that it 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:46.400 is embodied by bad smells and bad physical forces and 0:07:46.600 --> 0:07:49.680 excrement and things like that. Yeah, and yet still you 0:07:49.840 --> 0:07:53.480 have to realize that all of these individuals, uh, they 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:58.280 experienced flatulence as just a regular aspect of their lives 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:02.120 and every day reality city of their biology. Yeah, if 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:04.720 this guy gets flatulence in church, is that also a 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:06.720 demon possessing him? Yeah? I mean, let's let's not be 0:08:06.800 --> 0:08:09.240 silly about it like that. Those those guys are gonna 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:11.880 fart in church. It's just going to happen, no matter 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:14.360 how holy the monk uh, there is going to be 0:08:15.040 --> 0:08:17.600 a bit of a flat us in play. Now. It's 0:08:17.640 --> 0:08:21.400 obvious that many people in the Middle Ages, and lots 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:25.480 of people involved in creating Christian theology and mythology have 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:28.960 been interested in the idea of flatulence and the role 0:08:29.040 --> 0:08:32.760 that plays in demonology. But sometimes it goes beyond the demonology. 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:35.880 I mentioned earlier that that some of these theologians really 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:37.680 do seem to have their head in the toilet. And 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:40.760 who I mainly had in mind was Martin Luther, because 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:44.240 I know Martin Luther loved some potty humor jokes, and 0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:46.640 he he was he had a he had a wicked, 0:08:46.679 --> 0:08:51.360 witty pin and he would fling just powerful volleys of scatological, 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:55.960 excoriating invective against his enemies. Yeah, they're a number of 0:08:56.000 --> 0:09:00.800 different Martin Luther quotes that use scatological reference, says, probably 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:03.880 with the most famous one is quote but I resist 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:06.640 the devil, and often it is with a fart that 0:09:06.679 --> 0:09:11.120 I chase him away. That's great because so it's not 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:14.480 just a rebuke, but it's also like uh and and 0:09:14.880 --> 0:09:17.720 implied diminishment of the power of the devil. Right, It's like, 0:09:17.800 --> 0:09:21.760 I don't need powerful spiritual forces or strong weapons or 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:23.960 anything like that to chase the devil away. I just 0:09:24.120 --> 0:09:27.439 missed the devil. Yeah, it's not just merely a get 0:09:27.440 --> 0:09:30.920 behind me satan um, it's get behind me satan. Now 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:32.839 here comes a twot. And of course there are other 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:34.560 examples of this as well. I was looking at a 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:38.280 book titled luther Man Between God and the Devil by 0:09:39.000 --> 0:09:42.839 j Iko A Oberman, who points out that Luther often 0:09:42.960 --> 0:09:45.840 used poopy language against the devil and his work. So 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:48.960 here are just a few examples. Uh and and Joe, 0:09:49.000 --> 0:09:51.120 maybe you can you can read these with me. Uh 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:54.160 here's one. But if that is not enough for you, 0:09:54.160 --> 0:09:58.560 you devil, I also have and wipe your mouth on 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:02.920 that and take a hearty by oh ruh Okay, we 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:06.880 got another one here. A slanderer does nothing but ruminate 0:10:06.960 --> 0:10:09.760 the filth of others with his own teeth and wallow 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:12.720 like a pig with his nose in the dirt. That 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:16.880 is also why his dropping stink most surpassed only by 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:20.720 the devil's. And though man drops his excrements in private, 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:24.480 the slanderer does not respect this privacy. He gluts on 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:26.880 the pleasure of wallowing in it, and he does not 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:31.560 deserve better. According to God's righteous judgment. When the slanderer whispers, 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:34.960 look how he is on himself, the best answer is 0:10:35.280 --> 0:10:38.880 you go eat it. He's he's almost there's almost like 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:43.160 a childish glee that is that is that is present 0:10:43.160 --> 0:10:45.760 in these quotes. Yes, and of course Luther, being the 0:10:45.800 --> 0:10:49.760 author of the Christian Reformation, you know, the birth of Protestantism, 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:52.720 Luther of course had a lot of farty invective for 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:55.440 the pope quote, I will give a fart for a 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:58.960 staff you Satan, Antichrist or Pope can lean on it 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:01.400 a stinking thing. Man. This is making me think I 0:11:01.440 --> 0:11:05.080 would not want to make enemies with Martin Luther. Yeah, 0:11:05.080 --> 0:11:06.400 I mean he's going to really let you have it, 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:08.840 maybe physically. Now, all of this makes me think that 0:11:08.880 --> 0:11:11.319 you could actually write a whole book on the cultural 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:15.679 significance of farting in Middle Age Europe, you could, And 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:19.240 in fact, Valerie Allen did just that, really yeah, in 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:22.240 her book on Farting, Language and Laughter in the Middle Ages, 0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:25.640 published in two thousand seven. And uh, this is just 0:11:25.840 --> 0:11:29.720 this is a rich tone. This is truly a phart anomicon, uh, 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:32.560 in its own right. So I just wanted to pull 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:36.120 a few choice tidbits from the text. So she She, 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:41.960 for instance, mentions, uh, the fourteenth century Icelandic tale of 0:11:41.960 --> 0:11:47.160 of poor Stein's powdern Skulks, in which a demon arises 0:11:47.200 --> 0:11:49.920 from the depths of a twenty two seat toilet to 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:52.400 confront our hero whoa So is it like the number 0:11:52.400 --> 0:11:55.679 of seats is proportional to the depths of degradation that 0:11:55.760 --> 0:11:58.480 the toilet embodies. I guess, So, you know, because I'm 0:11:58.480 --> 0:12:02.040 guessing that those twenty two seats share a common pit 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:06.320 of foulness, and it's it takes. It's that sort of 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:11.600 foulness from which the demon must arise. She also notes 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:14.600 that late medieval art often depicts demons is covered in 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:18.319 fecal matter, as well as the mystery plays of the time, 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:21.800 So an example of this from Alan. She says that 0:12:21.840 --> 0:12:25.040 in the drama The Fall of Lucifer, as Lucifer quote 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:29.720 thuds to his stinking sty, he wales for fear of fire, 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:33.840 I crack a fart. And then in the Fall of 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:36.600 Man you have this character Diabolos, and he cries out. 0:12:36.679 --> 0:12:38.840 And this is of course the translation on account of 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:41.720 this fall, I am starting to quake with a fart. 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:45.040 My breeches, I break, which again is just kind of 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:50.240 another of us like grade school poopy insult or parody 0:12:50.360 --> 0:12:52.920 leveled at at the devil. It has some of the 0:12:52.920 --> 0:12:55.680 wit of the couplets you see in like Dryden and 0:12:55.760 --> 0:12:59.280 Alexander Pope. Yeah, more like Alexander poop though. I'm a right. 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:04.199 So I want to share one more quote from Valerie 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:06.360 Allen because she she sums up a lot of this 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:10.319 very nicely, and and she says the following quote. If 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:15.480 in the popular theatrical imagination, Satan's descent to bottomless perdition 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:19.720 is punctuated by flatulence, it is a natural consequence to 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:23.640 picture him as the load that Heaven discharges into Hell. 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:28.960 The show of the Cosmos. I just love that because 0:13:29.000 --> 0:13:30.880 it does it just sums up so much of this 0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:38.000 this energy and inter interconnectedness between bodily movements and flatulence 0:13:38.280 --> 0:13:42.560 and these demonic entities and just the overall like theological 0:13:42.840 --> 0:13:49.280 structure of the universe. Christian cosmology reduced to just your 0:13:49.320 --> 0:13:53.640 everyday bowel movement on the potty. And of course the 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:58.400 Christian tradition is not the only tradition to to play 0:13:58.640 --> 0:14:01.480 with flat lens, not at all. So yeah, we will 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:04.120 leave the Christian tradition for a moment and look at 0:14:04.160 --> 0:14:06.720 the fact that fart humor goes way back and covers 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:10.120 pretty much the entire world. There are fart jokes everywhere 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:13.559 and they go deep into history. There's actually a writer 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:16.760 and academic named Paul McDonald who he teaches at the 0:14:16.960 --> 0:14:20.440 University of Wolverhampton, and he was involved in this list 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:22.960 that came out a few years back. That was where 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:26.080 they were trying to find the oldest jokes known in history. 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:29.240 And it turned out that, according to this University of 0:14:29.280 --> 0:14:33.840 Wolverhampton list, the oldest known joke at the time was 0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:37.320 a fart joke. It is a fart joke from ancient Mesopotamia. 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:40.760 It's a Sumerian joke that traces back to about nineteen 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:44.720 b C. E, making it almost four thousand years old, 0:14:44.840 --> 0:14:50.000 and it reads in translation as the following quote, something 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:54.280 which has never occurred since time immemorial, A young woman 0:14:54.400 --> 0:14:59.760 did not fart in her husband's lap. Okay. I think 0:14:59.800 --> 0:15:03.000 may maybe like the the particulars of the joke don't 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:06.440 don't carry well across you know, more than four millennia. 0:15:06.520 --> 0:15:09.560 But it does seem to Yeah, it's lost something in 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:13.720 in translation, maybe language wise and definitely culturally. I don't 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:16.040 know if this is topical humor for the time. Is 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:18.600 it like there was a big problem with I don't know, 0:15:18.680 --> 0:15:21.680 dudes getting married and then their wife farting in their lap. 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:26.280 I don't know, but that's what it seems to suggest. 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:30.120 It's like everybody will be like, oh, yeah, that always happens. Uh. 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:34.080 It's sort of a mandatory contemplation here. Do you think 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:37.440 that the presence of an ancient fart joke like this 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:42.920 supports uh the idea of of the bicameral mind Julian 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:45.800 James's theory? Or is it? Or? Is it? Or is 0:15:45.880 --> 0:15:48.480 this uh? Or is this some some ammunition one could 0:15:48.560 --> 0:15:50.720 use against it? I don't know. I guess i'd say 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:54.680 it's neutral. Yeah, I certainly wouldn't say supports okay, But 0:15:54.680 --> 0:15:58.120 but I do wonder what would one, given the particulars 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:01.680 of of the bicameral theory, would would one have to 0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:05.440 be conscious as a modern human is conscious in order 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:07.920 to make a fart joke like this. That's a good question. 0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:10.920 I don't know how humor would play into the presence 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:14.920 of consciousness. Yeah. I will say though that I love 0:16:15.000 --> 0:16:17.640 Julian James theory, and I would I would hate it 0:16:17.720 --> 0:16:20.440 if it were an ancient fart joke that truly brought 0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:22.760 it down, like this was the this was the arrow 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:25.680 that managed to to kill the piece. That's the nail 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:28.520 in the coffin. Is the fart joke? Yeah? Sorry, James 0:16:28.840 --> 0:16:31.920 could be well, I say we look elsewhere for more 0:16:31.960 --> 0:16:35.800 fart jokes in history. One of the best that I 0:16:35.840 --> 0:16:38.600 have come across is actually not a verbal joke, but 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:45.280 it is a series of amazing illustrations from medieval Japanese art. So, Robert, 0:16:45.320 --> 0:16:49.600 have you seen these medieval Japanese fart scrolls? I had 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:52.120 not until you showed them to me this morning. I mean, 0:16:52.120 --> 0:16:55.520 I've seen so many different bits of Japanese art that 0:16:55.640 --> 0:16:58.600 depict basically just all sorts of body horror, be they 0:16:58.600 --> 0:17:02.760 in the form of yokai or other monster stories, or 0:17:03.080 --> 0:17:06.200 or even just like the magical testicle based ability of 0:17:06.280 --> 0:17:10.679 the raccoon dogs. So in Edo period Japan, which is 0:17:10.760 --> 0:17:14.639 the early seventeenth to mid nineteenth century, some artists or 0:17:14.760 --> 0:17:17.720 group of artists created a collection of artworks that have 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:19.680 now been digitized and you can find them at the 0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:23.920 website of Waseda University Library. And these artworks are contained 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:27.879 on a scroll known as hay Gassin or fart Battle, 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:31.720 and the name says it all. You've got dudes blasting 0:17:31.760 --> 0:17:34.240 each other with farts in every way you can imagine, 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:37.320 but not just any farts. These are kind of a supernatural, 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:39.960 high powered fart that appears to have the power to 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:42.680 knock people over and do all kinds of damage. It's 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:46.119 represented in the artwork as a kind of spreading beam 0:17:46.280 --> 0:17:49.720 of darkness that comes out of the butt. And so 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:52.960 it's you've got dudes farting and enemies while riding on horseback. 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:56.000 You've got dudes farting through holes in the walls. You've 0:17:56.000 --> 0:18:00.320 got farting on cats. I don't know why, sometimes farting 0:18:00.320 --> 0:18:03.080 at cats and the cats are like and then you've 0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:06.280 got people farting into bags and then releasing the bags 0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:10.000 on rivals, and then repelling farts with handheld fans. That's 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:15.000 pretty smart, like Mortal Kombat. Yeah, Neighbor's right there, all 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:18.720 kinds of havoc and destruction. And this particular scroll actually 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:21.280 appears to be part of a larger tradition of fart 0:18:21.320 --> 0:18:25.760 battle art works. I found one academic article discussing medieval 0:18:25.840 --> 0:18:29.200 Japanese fart battles in art, and it was by Akiko Yano. 0:18:29.320 --> 0:18:33.040 The article was called Historiography of the Phallic Contest hand 0:18:33.040 --> 0:18:36.800 Scroll in Japanese Art in the Japan Review in and 0:18:36.920 --> 0:18:40.840 Yano describes one art scroll housed at the Mitsui Memorial 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:43.800 Museum in Tokyo, which is known as catchier a Maki, 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:48.080 and it's a hand scroll that contains both the phallic 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:50.679 contest component that was in the title of the paper, 0:18:50.920 --> 0:18:54.720 which is a competition quote among men with surrealistically huge 0:18:54.760 --> 0:18:59.080 male members, and then it's also got a fart battle component. 0:18:59.160 --> 0:19:02.080 And in the fart attle section, the only text is 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:05.080 a few brief descriptions of what is happening in some 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:09.639 of the artworks. Examples of the explanatory text include quote. 0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:13.440 They prepare to fart like arrows by drinking cold water 0:19:13.560 --> 0:19:18.520 to chill their bellies, picking sweet acorns and eating them 0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:22.400 with raw chestnuts. Their stomachs are chilled. Now they line 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:26.119 up to fart like arrows by eating hot rice porridge. Okay, 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:28.120 now this lines up with some of the science will 0:19:28.119 --> 0:19:31.840 be discussing later. Yes, And finally they collect the farts 0:19:31.840 --> 0:19:37.080 in a bag and prepare to volley fart arrows. Fart arrows, 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:40.600 fart arrows. All right. I really like the way that's written, 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:42.280 as if it's like you should already know what a 0:19:42.320 --> 0:19:48.399 fart arrow is. But yeah. Another interesting thing Yano points 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:50.840 out in the article is that many of the figures 0:19:50.840 --> 0:19:54.240 depicted in these artworks releasing these huge sort of fart 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:58.400 hadukans are supposed to be priests. They're dressed as priests, 0:19:58.440 --> 0:20:00.560 So you have to wonder, it's like, is there a 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:03.919 satirical aspect to this? Yeah, I mean we see this 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:07.520 in East and West, right, this idea perhaps that you know, 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:10.639 no matter how holy this particular holy man or woman 0:20:11.160 --> 0:20:14.280 may seem, we all know that they fart, and we 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:17.400 can imagine it, and sometimes, if we're lucky, we can 0:20:17.440 --> 0:20:20.359 hear it, and and it's it serves to sort of 0:20:20.520 --> 0:20:23.080 knock them down a peg, at least in our minds. Okay, 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:25.600 I got one more good one, Robert, did you did 0:20:25.640 --> 0:20:28.760 you know previously about Roland the Farter? I had not 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:32.159 heard of Roland the Farter. No, do tell of Roland 0:20:32.200 --> 0:20:34.680 the Farter. Well, there's a really great Warren Zevon song 0:20:34.720 --> 0:20:37.399 about him. I'm getting confused for something else on the 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:40.040 head of Thompson Gunner. Yeah. So there is a section 0:20:40.160 --> 0:20:42.960 on good old Roland in the book A Social History 0:20:43.000 --> 0:20:46.320 of England nine twelve hundred, edited by Julia Crick and 0:20:46.320 --> 0:20:50.040 Elizabeth van Houts. And this is discussing what went on 0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:52.399 in the court of the English King Henry the Second, 0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:55.640 who ruled in the middle of the twelfth century. So 0:20:55.920 --> 0:20:59.280 I'm going to read this quote quote. At the royal court, 0:20:59.440 --> 0:21:03.919 Christmas was evidently a time for special entertainments, as suggested 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:07.320 by the records of one Roland le Patur also called 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:13.439 rue landas Lefarterre, who was granted a sergeanty, apparently of 0:21:13.480 --> 0:21:16.600 the late twelfth century. And aside note, a sergeanty was 0:21:16.680 --> 0:21:18.840 part of the feudal system, where a person would be 0:21:18.880 --> 0:21:22.600 awarded control of a feudal estate in exchange for some 0:21:22.760 --> 0:21:26.159 non standard service rendered. So basically it was kind of 0:21:26.200 --> 0:21:28.919 like a feudal knighthood. You'd be given a grant of land, 0:21:28.960 --> 0:21:31.879 except instead of being a knight in service of the 0:21:31.960 --> 0:21:34.879 King of the queen, you would do some kind of 0:21:34.920 --> 0:21:38.159 other service. But going back to the quote, his grant 0:21:38.240 --> 0:21:41.240 is typical of that given to favored entertainers as well 0:21:41.280 --> 0:21:44.240 as to others of service to the king. In his case, 0:21:44.280 --> 0:21:49.560 it included the requirement of performing saltum siffletum petum, or 0:21:49.720 --> 0:21:53.400 a jump, a whistle a fart before the king on 0:21:53.480 --> 0:21:57.040 Christmas Day. The phrase was a stock expression and seems 0:21:57.040 --> 0:22:00.719 to represent standard buffoonery, the kind of thing that constitute 0:22:00.760 --> 0:22:03.800 a jester's performance, and so it is likely that Roland 0:22:03.880 --> 0:22:07.080 the Farter was a royal jester and the fart was 0:22:07.160 --> 0:22:10.800 his stock in trade. I wonder if these were legitimate 0:22:10.840 --> 0:22:13.879 farts or were these like sort of clown based farts. 0:22:13.880 --> 0:22:17.000 Did he have some sort of cushioned devices at a 0:22:17.040 --> 0:22:19.720 poem in the armpit kind of thing. Yeah, it would 0:22:19.840 --> 0:22:22.560 tend to suggest they wouldn't settle for anything less than 0:22:22.600 --> 0:22:25.399 the real thing. Isn't that interesting? Because you can in 0:22:25.440 --> 0:22:28.200 the same way that you know, we have these these 0:22:28.240 --> 0:22:32.919 festivals in which the fool has made king for for 0:22:33.000 --> 0:22:35.560 a day. You know, everything's the reverse for the For 0:22:35.600 --> 0:22:38.840 the jester, what in the in the actual king's court 0:22:39.160 --> 0:22:42.680 to fart in the king's presence? Uh, could be a 0:22:43.040 --> 0:22:46.720 extreme embarrassment. It could it could diminish your standing in 0:22:47.080 --> 0:22:49.560 the royal court. And yet the opposite is true for 0:22:49.600 --> 0:22:51.760 the jester. What it would if he has called upon 0:22:51.840 --> 0:22:56.040 to to do his performance and he has no flatus 0:22:56.320 --> 0:22:58.920 upon which to call it could that could be disaster, 0:22:59.119 --> 0:23:01.960 That could could cause his head to be separated from 0:23:01.960 --> 0:23:04.600 his body. Yeah, I can't remember the details, but you've 0:23:04.640 --> 0:23:07.119 just called to mind a story I think I recall 0:23:07.119 --> 0:23:11.600