Listener Mail: Here Comes Halloween

Once more, it's time for a dose of Stuff to Blow Your Mind and Weirdhouse Cinema listener mail...

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. Listener mail.
My name is Robert.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
Lamb, and I am Joe McCormick and Rob and I
are here with our loyal mail bot Carney to read
back some messages you have sent in to the Stuff
to Blow your Mind email address over the past few weeks, which,
by the way, if you want to get in touch yourself,
that is contact at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
We love messages of all kinds, especially feedback to recent episodes.

(00:37):
If you've got something interesting you'd like to add to
a topic that we've talked about, if you have corrections,
if you just want to let us know anything. You know,
how you found out about the show, what you do
when you listen, that sort of thing. Right on in
contact at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot Com. All right, Rob,
let's see do you mind if I kick things off
with this message from Cindy offering some some pronunciation guidance

(01:02):
in response to our episode on the Urukiara, the Lovable
Wobbly Mascots of Japan. Sure let's have it, okay, Cindy says, Hi,
Robert and Joe longtime listener, and I've emailed in the
past as well. I still love your podcast, including Weird House.

(01:22):
I wasn't sure if I should write in because I
didn't want to come across as a pronunciation pedant, but
I think it would be of interest to you as well.
I recently listened back to the two part episode about
Urukiara and found it fun and informative. However, I did
want to let you know that the word kawwaie is
not pronounced kowai as most non Japanese speaking English speakers

(01:45):
tend to say it. You know, It's funny because years
and years ago at this point, we actually did an
episode addressing sort of the overlap and convergence of these
two terms. I think it was about the sort of
cute scary pop culture phenomenon, especially in Japan. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
Yeah, and I know that sometimes when you do searches
in English based on these concepts, you'll end up getting
some overlap as well, where you'll realize, oh wait, I
thought I was looking up cute and this is clearly
stuff that's in the horror creepy context.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
So yeah, but yeah, so this is what Cindy gets
into in the email, Cindy says, first of all, the
word for cute isk ye, and the word for scary
is co ye. For some reason, when English speakers say
cow ye, it comes out sounding much closer to co ye,
with a rounded a that sounds more like oh. Cute
and scary describe very different qualities, so I think it's

(02:38):
worth taking the time to pronounce them clearly. I hear
a lot of people saying it like a mashup of
both words. The word k ye is pronounced with an
a sound, and the e is actually a long e
sound co y e. Scary is pronounced k wha and
then e. As an email, if you listen to a
Japanese speaker saying it online, you will hear the difference.

(03:01):
Second of all, this word has worked its way into
the mainstream in America, so I thought it was important
that you knew the difference, especially if you need to
use it for future podcasts. Keep up the great work.
Thank you for the hours of fun and informative content.
I'm impressed with your vast knowledge and the creative and
thoughtful ways which you make connections. Ps. I currently have
a bag of rice in my cupboard with a big

(03:22):
image of kumaman in it, kumaman air. I always liked
kumaman because my last name is Kumano, which is bear
plus field. Cindy, Well, thank you for the guideance, Cindy. Yeah. I,
as we said, this has come up on the show before,
sort of the these two words in the context of
each other. And I don't know if it's especially because

(03:45):
of my Southern American accent, or if this is just
going to be a common way of speaking. But when
you have the O and the A sound, between the
K and the W sound, there is just a natural
tendency for them to sound the same. I think that
might be especially true for sort of a Tennessee American
accent like mine. It's really hard for me to say

(04:06):
it any other way. I have to like slow down
and break the word apart into different syllables to say
it like a Japanese speaker would.

Speaker 4 (04:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
Likewise, Southern American guy gene here. So we try and
get it right. But you know, thanks, thanks for the correction.

Speaker 3 (04:23):
Yeah. I can't promise we always will, but you know,
we're doing our.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
Best, all right. This next one comes to us from
let's see, this is from Jim in New Jersey, and
this one has to do with odds and evans. I
think this is a response to the whole rule of
thirds thing and composition that we were talking about. Yeah, so,
Jim says Robert Joe and JJ. Steven Spielberg illustrates how

(04:49):
he learned the rules of thirds and The Fablements, which
is a semi autobiographical film of his family portrayed via
the a fictional family the Fables. The main careara, Young
Spielberg meets legendary film director John Ford, who is portrayed
as a salty curmudgeon. Ford asks young Spielberg if he
knows art. Ford points to a few paintings hanging in

(05:11):
his office. He asks the young lad to comment on them.
When young Spielberg balks and responding, Ford barks at him
to point out the horizon in the first painting it's low.
In the second painting it's high. Now. I want to
add I've not seen the movie in question here, but
I had to look it up on IMDb. And it's
worth noting that David Lynch plays John Ford in this.

Speaker 3 (05:33):
Yeah, that's an inspired bit of casting, especially how notoriously
eccentric John Ford was salty and curmudgeonly by reputation, yes,
but also just like a super weird guy. And I
should say another thing about the scene is so he
has the young Spielberg in his office and john Ford
is pointing it like paintings of cowboys, and he says,

(05:55):
describe the painting to me, and the young Spielberg at
first tries to say what's happening in it. He's like, well,
there are three cowboys on horses around it. And he's
like no, no, no, no, no, where's the horizon? That's
what he's asking him when he does it over and over. Oh.
But then after this, the John Ford character played by

(06:16):
David Lynch, he caps it by making the lesson explicit.

Speaker 2 (06:21):
Yes, and Jim here includes some quotes from the film,
but basically it comes down to Ford telling the young
Spielberg that when the horizon's at the bottom, it's interesting.
When it's at the top, it's interesting, but when it's
in the middle, it is boring.

Speaker 3 (06:34):
It is boring. As explative. Yah, I really liked this
scene because you can tell the way this would have
been approached in a lot of other movies. And again,
I think this is based on a real episode that
happened to young Steven Spielberg. So also, like what apparently
or allegedly happened in real life, you would expect the

(06:54):
young director speaking to a kid who aspires to work
in the film industry to have a kind a more
kind of general wisdom about the spirit of filmmaking or
something like that, you know what I mean. And instead
he gives them this incredibly specific practical lesson about framing
shots and that's all.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
Yeah, yeah, as if like this is the one rule,
get this and the rest will come anyway, Jim says that, Yeah.
The next scene is young Spielberg on the back lot
and he demonstrates that he has indeed learned the lesson
of horizon placement.

Speaker 3 (07:27):
Okay, well, whatever the empirical research says about the universality
or non universality of preferences for rule of thirds in art,
john Ford is devoted to it. He's there, let's see
you ready for me to do this message from Nathan.
This is also about our series on odds and evens. Yes,
let's do it, Nathan says, Hi, guys, I gotta say,

(07:53):
even after twelve or so years of listening, y'all are
still pumping out superior programming. I find fascinating. To call
it great work is an understatement. Thank you, Nathan. That's
very kind, Nathan says. When I heard the odds and
evens topic, my mind went to plating immediately. I spent
about two decades working in restaurants and learned that the

(08:13):
use of even numbers on a dish was considered an
amateurish faux pas. This was true regardless of the shape
of the plate. I suppose it's the irregular juxtaposition of
food against the symmetry of the dish that makes it
appealing to the eye. Towards the end of that period,
I learned desserts from a chef trained in classical French preparation,

(08:35):
who insisted that each serving consisted of three colors, three textures,
and three flavors. That's three threes naturally plated and or
garnished in odds. He also demanded height and diagonal shapes
for whatever that's worth. Oh yeah, you want your desserts
to be tall, right, no flat deserts. I don't know

(08:56):
how to check the veracity of this claim, but I
once heard that traditional play in threes or fives came
from Asian cultures. It is true, in part at least,
that in both Chinese and Japanese the word for the
number four is similar enough to the word for death
that the number is considered unlucky and thus avoided. Why
that would influence European cuisine seems hard to research. And

(09:19):
it's not really about even numbers in this case, just
the number four. Any thoughts, just human aesthetics anyway, gents,
keep them coming, Rob, any chance you will reveal the
origin of the name Argomandanese. I suspect some M S
T three K inspiration your loyal listener, Nathan.

Speaker 2 (09:37):
Oh, Well, well, there's a lot of a lot of
thoughts in there, I guess, starting with the subject of
food and numerals and different cultures. I think the examples
of threes and fives in Asian cultures like this is
just in general, a good example of something we did
talk about, and that is that there are so many
factors influencing the way that numbers are p and you'll

(10:01):
have things like this occur in a culture where yeah,
particular number will have a lucky you know, a lucky
or an unlucky connotation, and then it ripples out from there,
and then that's going to influence the way those numbers
are used, at least in some cases and other times not.

Speaker 3 (10:16):
Yeah. Yeah. So for example, we talked in one of
those episodes on Odds and Evens about research showing that,
you know, maybe people view even numbers as more kind
of stable and friendly and good in general, but then
also especially like people perceive multiples of four as extremely even,
like more even than even. But you know, these studies

(10:39):
are mostly among like English speaking Westerners, and you wonder
if the same would be true and say a culture
where the number four among many people is considered unlucky
because of a homophone association with the concept of death.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
Yeah, and again it's like, we can we can point
to examples of within Western culture where you end up
with with the situations that seem to contradict each other, like,
for instance, thirteen, what unlucky number? Right, And you see
all sorts of wacky things that are done to avoid
listing thirteen, such as like skipping thirteen in a floor

(11:15):
plan for a building in the elevator or I was
noticing this the other day. I was with my family
to an art opening and it was next to like
a firehouse, I believe, and it was like, I guess
it was like firehouse thirteen. But they're like, well, we
got to put thirteen up there, but we're going to
put it on a four leaf clover, so like a
four leaf clover design was added, So we'll do things

(11:35):
like that. But then we come back to the idea
of the baker's dozen being like thirteen donuts or what
have you. And of course the reasons for that are
related to an entirely separate matter that has to do
with like I think, like old baking laws, like old
baking European baking laws. But you know, they contradict each
other on one hand, like oh, you demand your thirteen

(11:58):
doughnuts or biscuits or whatever it is, And on the
other hand, there would seem to be an impulse to
never give the customer thirteen donuts. What are you trying
to do bring death upon their house? So yeah, it's
just all over the place, and there are going to
be examples like this, I think in any given culture.
But then again, who had turned down the thirteenth donut?
We talked about about how numbers of how we calculate

(12:19):
numbers when it comes to food, Like, is anyone going
to say no, please hold the thirteenth donut. I don't
want it to be unlucky. You would say, why, certainly,
one more donut, the more the mirror.

Speaker 3 (12:30):
Oh but wait, we didn't get to Nathan's ps yet,
so Nathan also says, weird house ps. Y'all gotta do. Pumpkinhead.
I know, like you mentioned about legend, there's something missing
that's hard to pin down, and I admit nostalgia compels
me to watch it each Halloween. It was Stan Winston's
only feature directing credit, but the creature, the sets, the

(12:51):
Witch's hovel alone is worth the viewing. The shantytown, the
holler with the cursed pumpkin patch so gorgeous. I watched
the film for years before I realized slight spoiler that
each time the creature appears, he more closely resembles Lance Henrickson.
Fun fact, Pumpkinhead features a pre blossom Miambi Alec, while

(13:12):
Pumpkinhead two features a post punky Brewster SOLEI moon Fry parentheses.
Don't watch the sequels though, and the dog Gypsy is
played by Mushroom, the same pooch who played Barney in Grimlins.
All right, wow, Unfortunately I have seen Pumpkinhead two, and
I agree that Pumpkinhead is one of those movies that

(13:33):
has a lot going for it. It has some wonderful
production design, great creature effects, and yeah that you know,
the sets are great, the witches, hovel, the graveyard and
all that. Something I feel like is kind of lacking
at the core of it in the story, but it
does have a lot of great horror elements and some
wonderful atmosphere. On the other hand, I unfortunately have seen

(13:55):
at least one of the sequels. It's been a while.
I recall it being not good, not good at all.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
You know, I don't think I've ever seen one of
these in full. They were just some of them were
would be on like I think, kind of like a
Turner channel, maybe a USA or something. So it was
just part of these films were just part of like
the cable background static for me when I was a kid.
So at some point I should go back and watch one,
if only to appreciate the visual texture of the thing.

Speaker 3 (14:22):
I don't know how many movies they made it to
in the end, the.

Speaker 2 (14:25):
Four, I think four movies total.

Speaker 3 (14:28):
They're really going to keep working that concept, but you know,
they also did make a video game.

Speaker 2 (14:33):
Really for what systems are?

Speaker 3 (14:35):
I think it was an It was a computer game,
I think. Hold on, I pulled up the link here,
let me click the link. Yeah, it was a first
person shooter computer game that I think was for like
ran On DAWs. Basically, it was a computer game. Huh.
It looks absolutely atrocious. I've never played it, rob I

(14:57):
did include a screenshot in the outline here for you
to see. So you're like wandering around in a gray
maze with gray walls and gray ceilings, low gray ceilings,
gray floors, and then you will see scary things like ooh,
here's a skeleton, and here's like a floating face without
a body, and and then there's a bunch of meters

(15:18):
and stuff. I guess that's your life and magic and stuff.

Speaker 2 (15:22):
It looks horrible, one of the many like Doom clones
of the day.

Speaker 4 (15:28):
I guess.

Speaker 3 (15:28):
Wait wait, wait, but we have the question of where
where the wizard's name comes from?

Speaker 2 (15:32):
Rob Oh, yeah, Argomanganese. You know, I'm not sure exactly.
There may be a little mst in there. There's probably
a little bit of Ozomandias in there. There's a little
bit of Manganese. But the short version is that it's
a wizard name I made up on the fly in
a Dungeons and Dragons campaign back in like twenty sixteen.

Speaker 4 (15:50):
I think, Ah, all.

Speaker 2 (16:01):
Right, this next one comes to us from Dennis on
the subject of star trek and ramming speed. Yes, there
is some more great stuff in this bucket.

Speaker 3 (16:10):
Oh wait, I guess we should say this is in
response to our episodes on the ore powered galleys of
the ancient Mediterranean.

Speaker 4 (16:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
Yeah, So this was basically throughout the question we were like,
are there ship rammings and star trek? It seems like
there would be, since so much of it is based
on nautical warfare, And indeed there are multiple examples, and
we keep getting new examples, which I love. So Dennis
writes and says, Hello, Rob, Joe and JJ, longtime listener here.
I'd again like to thank you for the many hours
of enjoyment your podcast has given me over the years.

(16:38):
I started listing with Talos the Bronze Automaton when I
started working a job with a very long commute. I've
been hooked since. In your recent Ores and Wine Dark
Seas episodes, you made mention that star Trek must have
had some ramming incidents, if not several, and it's basically
naval battles in space. You'd also mentioned Warhammer forty thousand

(16:59):
and it predilection for rammable vessels. You'll be interested to
know that there's almost a crossover between the two. A
Star Trek space vessel ramming scene featuring what has to
be the most forty k ship ever to grace the
Trek franchise, and of course it's a Klingon one. May
I present the Klingon Cleave ship from Star Trek Discovery.

Speaker 3 (17:22):
Now, I followed the link to look this up. It's
like a Star Trek Memory Alpha link. But like, the
pictures don't show a very clear view of the ship.
And I think that's because this is supposed to be
kind of a stealth ship or one that's in deep cloaking,
so it looks almost translucent.

Speaker 2 (17:37):
Yeah. I looked at the pictures on Memory Alpha and
I didn't get a clear sense of it either. But
then I looked up some other images and I think
I got what they were going for. Okay, Dennis continues.
The ship features in the first episode of the first season,
which incidentally, this means I've actually seen this episode, but

(17:59):
I've forgotten it was a ramming vessel, as well as
the last episode of the second season, where its role
is to slowly crush and do other ships while cloaked,
giving its target no chance to dodge, unlike other Trek ships,
but like a classical Tryrem, it's built to ram a
target with a massive, heavy bladed keel that makes short

(18:19):
work of opposing ships, crushing them slowly like the Tryrem's
prowlwood rather than a high speed ramming. It hasn't been
seen since, likely because it's such an odd fit and
because Discovery Star Trek Discovery changed its style dramatically in
succeeding seasons. But it's just so ridiculous and wondrously metal

(18:40):
and very warhammer, standing out from typical Star Trek fair
Thanks again and best wishes, Dennis.

Speaker 3 (18:46):
Yeah, it is interesting how the concept of having this
heavy keel and slowly crushing opposing ships it kind of
feels out of character for Star Trek battles. It does
feel a little bit more like something from a grim
dark sci fi world.

Speaker 2 (19:00):
Yeah, and I think this kind of sums up at
least that first season of Star Trek Discovery, which I
haven't seen all of but and I paid attention to
some of the back and forth about it when it
came out, and I have watched I think the first
two episodes. Because it is just visual overload. They really
made an effort to like take Star Trek and not
change I think the way they've described it is that

(19:22):
they were they made the decision to, look, we're not
going to mess with the lore, but we can change
the way the lore is visually represented. And so like
the Klingons look kind of like space orcs. Like everything
they're wearing is just like just designed to the nines.
It's like just a very very rich ship, interiors very

(19:43):
dark gothic and indeed kind of grim dark. Everything feels
at once like Star Trek but also like a new Beast,
And I did, you know, I'm not sure I love.
I ultimately loved what they were going for, but I
appreciated the effort that they we're putting into it. For instance,
I remember there was something about I don't know if

(20:04):
this was all ships or just like a particular like
cling on Sarcophagus ship, but they actually had like tombs
on the exterior. The whole of the vessel, so they
put a lot of imagination to it. I'm not sure
everyone loved it, and I think they kind of backed
off from it, certainly in some of the Star Trek
shows that came after this, and I guess maybe in

(20:26):
later seasons as well.

Speaker 3 (20:28):
Tombs on the outside of the ship.

Speaker 2 (20:30):
That's I like that, Yeah, why not, you know, thinking
outside the loure box on that one. I like it.

Speaker 3 (20:37):
Well, this is what we asked for. Thank you, Dennis.
Another shorter email on ancient galleys and ramming. This is
from Dimitri, who says, Hi, Robin Joe, well listening to
the Ancient Oars Part three, I was pleasantly surprised when
you mentioned the Athlete Ram as you said. It's located

(20:59):
in the Hyphamir Time Museum, and Hypha is my hometown.
I visited this museum many times a while ago when
the kids were smaller, and I have to say, the
ram looks really impressive in real life. Attached is my
photo inside the museum of how the ram is displayed,
taken back in twenty seventeen. They also have an estimated
model of the trirem near the ram, and it contributes

(21:22):
to the impression and yes, when you see it you
immediately understand that these things are built to smash, not pierce.
And then Dimitri attaches the picture. It says, thanks for
the great content, Dmitri. And when you do see the
ram up close. Yeah, so this is one of those
bronze fittings that would go over the wooden part of
the boat that extends out the front. And remember that

(21:44):
it's not a sharp point because the boat doesn't want
to get stuck in the boat it's ramming. Instead, it
has three horizontal bronze fins that are sort of boxy
and square shaped at the edge. Clearly the idea is
to hit the wood of the opposing boat and try
to separate the planks to make them start coming apart
and taking on water.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
Yeah, very cool. I really appreciate the photograph here, not
only the artifact, but of this very cool model. I
love a great ship model a museum. All right, here's
another one. This one comes to us from Ahmed. Ahmed says,
Hey guys, Ahmed, here again, I loved your episode on
Ores and I couldn't help but think of the Odyssey

(22:26):
and how the ore is used as a marker of
Mediterranean identity. Toward the end, Odysseus, after his long travels,
is told by an oracle to take an ore from
his ship and walk inland until somebody mistakes it for
a winnowing fan, i e. A tool for blowing away
the chaff when separating grain from husks. The oracle says
this is the point when Odysseus's journey will be over

(22:49):
for good. I thought it was so cool how in
this way knowledge of what an ore even is is
considered the marker of greekness and of belonging to our
favorite wine dark seas. I think the pre industrial process
of grains harvesting, threshing, winning, etc. Would make a good
topic for episodes. It's given us lots of metaphors in

(23:09):
everyday life, and there are lots of cultural historical tie
ins given how important these staple crops were, that I
feel would be great stuffed to blow your mind material.

Speaker 3 (23:18):
Oh yeah, I think that's a great idea. Thank you, Ahmed,
And I did not remember this moment from the Odyssey
at all, but yes, the idea is what when you
get far enough inland, they will not realize that the
ore is for rowing, because it's no longer a culture
of the sea. They will just think it is for
blowing away the chaff from grain harvested from the fields.

(23:40):
I guess going from the sea to the fields.

Speaker 2 (23:43):
Yeah. Yeah, I don't remember this detail either, but I
love it.

Speaker 3 (23:47):
Okay. I'm going to move on to do a message
in response to our Ignobel episodes. So we usually do
a couple of episodes each year on studies featured in
that year's Ignobel Prizes. These are satirical awards given out
by a scientific humor magazine called the Annals of Improbable Research.
These awards are given out for research that, in the

(24:08):
words of the awarders, is supposed to make you laugh
and then make you think. So this first email references
one of the studies we talked about in part one
of our Ignobel series this year, an older experiment from
the nineteen forties in which a group of ag scientists
were trying to figure out the impact of fear and

(24:28):
stress on the milk yield from dairy cows. And what
was funny was that an early version of this experiment
involved putting a cat on a cow's back and then
exploding an inflated paper bag at the cat and the cow.
I think they eventually decided the cat, the cat stacking
part was unnecessary. Is that right, Rob?

Speaker 2 (24:48):
That's correct? And you know, after we recorded this, I'm
not going to name any names here, but of course
the ignobels always generate some discussion on popular news and
news comedy programs. But I saw some some jokes about
this that didn't acknowledge that this was an experiment from
the nineteen forties, you know, And so I think that

(25:09):
is important to note here. They're like, this was not
last year, This was the nineteen forties, but I think
it was nineteen.

Speaker 3 (25:14):
Forty one, so the opposite end of the forties.

Speaker 2 (25:17):
So it's been a while. Yeah, but yeah, you know,
the Eggnobell's always always make the headlines and people have
fun with them, and you're supposed to have fun with them,
so fair enough.

Speaker 3 (25:26):
And I think they did find that the paper bag
popping made the cows give less milk, right.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
Right, right, they did. And there were other wrinkles to
this experiment as well, but basically they just realized, oh,
the cat is not necessary. The exploding paper bag is sufficient.

Speaker 3 (25:45):
Right. So in this context, we heard from our listener,
Meg Meg writes in with subject line cows and boobs.
As I was listening to your recent ignobell number one,
I was struck by the similarities between cows and US
human women. Many women experience issues with breastfeeding, the let down,

(26:07):
the latching, making it all work right after birth. You
are stressed and freaked out as you now have a
new human to look after. Maybe you're all stitched up
from a c section, and then you have to figure
out how to get this little thing to latch onto
your breast. What if you don't have milk, What if
it doesn't work, What if you can't give the baby
that ever important milk. We may not have a cat

(26:28):
on our back and a bag exploding, but we are
super stressed. The difference in stress and worry and breastfeeding
between my first and second kids was night and day.
I was less stressed and less worried and calm the
second time, and it was much more successful. I wonder
if any scientists have turned their gaze from animals to
human women and the stress around breastfeeding and birth and

(26:51):
that ever pesky let down. Thanks love you, guys, and
then Meg gets in touch with the second email a PS.
Another thought that occurred to me is that us. Human
ladies also get hooked up to pump milk, often for
various reasons, and a calm and RESTful, safe place to
do that also affects the milk we produce. I recall
a time I had to pump in an airport because

(27:14):
there were no lactation rooms and there was no plug
in the bathroom. I had to plug my breast pump
into a cell phone charging station and pump next to
people charging their phones. So that was a pretty stressful
pumping environment. Again, links between cows pumping and human pumping
and stress, and that's the end. Well, thank you, Meg.

(27:35):
Fantastic couple of emails, touching on a really interesting and
important topic. I'm sure that lots of parents can relate
to this. I was talking to my wife Rachel about
this before we recorded, and we were talking about how
like it might be kind of hard to understand, like
to make the comparison there with the influence of stress,

(27:55):
just because having a newborn is almost always very stressful,
you know. But it's true that even if the near
universal baseline is stressed out, you can have gradations beyond that.
I guess stressed out versus extremely stressed out and with
those day to day variations. I guess a lot of
people probably will notice what seems to be a relationship

(28:17):
between breastfeeding outcomes and stress. So, Meg, you asked if
there was empirical research on this, I checked, and yes,
there is one fairly recent paper with a lot of
citations that I came across is by Emily Nagel at
All published in the journal Clinical Therapeutics in twenty twenty
two called Maternal Psychological Distress and Lactation and Breastfeeding Outcomes,

(28:41):
a narrative review. This is a review of the existing
scientific literature on links between psychological distress, so not just stress,
but this would include things like stress, anxiety, and depression,
so various forms of psychological distress and people having difficulty
achieving their breastfeeding goals. You can go look this paper
up if you want. You can read it in depth.

(29:02):
The full text is available on PubMed so you can
read the whole thing. The results they reviewed, they say,
are kind of difficult to combine because different methods and
measurements have been used across different experiments. But the short
summary of their findings is that yes, absolutely, there is
pretty good evidence that maternal psychological distress can impair multiple
breastfeeding outcomes, and this might be in part because stress

(29:25):
or psychological distress can hold back internal production of a
very important hormone called oxytocin, and oxytocin in turn plays
an important role in the milk ejection reflex. So they
propose that's a very likely candidate for a major explanation
why stress would impair breastfeeding outcomes. But they also propose
some other physiological mechanisms, and they also talk about how

(29:48):
the effect. I think this is probably also relatable to
a lot of people. The effect may be bi directional,
so stress or other psychological distress gets in the way
of lactation and feeding goals, which itself leads to more stress, etc.
And so it's kind of a feedback loop. But ultimately
the authors here say quote evidence to date suggests that

(30:09):
maternal psychological distress may impair lactation and breastfeeding outcomes, but
stronger study designs and rigorous assessment methods are needed. A
better understanding of the physiological mechanisms leading to impaired lactation
may assist in the development of early interventions for mothers
experiencing distress. In addition, stress reducing programs and policies should

(30:30):
be investigated for their potential to improve breastfeeding outcomes. So
obviously that could be a lot of things to just
generally improve people's conditions, increase comfort, increase support levels, decrease
stressful stimuli while people are trying to take care of
a newborn. Meg mentions one great way to help, and
that would be if you're designing public places where people

(30:52):
are going to have to spend a lot of time,
like an airport or whatever, having private quiet spaces that
could be used for lactation. That's a big help. That
cell phone charging station story is is ish.

Speaker 2 (31:03):
Yeah, yeah, I do appreciate that they have those. I
always think of this as kind of like telepods from
the fly, Yeah, that folks can use at the airports
these days.

Speaker 3 (31:13):
So anyway, thank you so much, Meg, great email, great connection,
and great question.

Speaker 2 (31:18):
All right, let's get into a little weird house cinema
listener mail here. This one comes to us from Joseph
in response to our episode on It Conquered the World.
Joseph says, you suggested a sequel where the invaders promise
an end to logic, offering the ecstasy of pure sensation

(31:40):
and emotion. I submit to you, gentlemen, that the film
already exists. It is called Hell Raiser.

Speaker 3 (31:45):
Joseph, that's good, that's very good. I don't know if
I would have said on my own that that's the
goal of the Cinnabyites and Hell Raiser, but I buy it.
That's a close enough fit.

Speaker 2 (31:58):
Yeah, I mean it certainly touches on some of the
way that the Cinabytes are described in the original novella
The Hell Bound Heart by Clive Barker, which I highly recommend.
I think it's I think it stands up. It's been
several years since I read it, but I remember thinking
of the time that it stood up, so maybe it
still stands up today. I don't know if the films
ever really explore this so much. You know, they end

(32:20):
up being a little bit more overtly evil, chaotic evil even.
But yeah, in the in the original text, there is
this sense that they just don't know what pleasure and
pain are anymore, Like the lines have been blurred so
much that they're like, you know, they think they're doing
you a solid by removing all of your skin. Why
would you spare yourself any of these these extreme sensations.

(32:43):
We don't know what's what's a good extreme sensation anymore,
or what is a bad extreme sensation. They're all the
same to you, and we want to share those experiences
with you with no malice.

Speaker 3 (32:53):
Yeah, And I think in some ways that is a
parody or caricature of actual states that humans can reach
in reality. I mean, maybe not to the extent of
the cinnabytes, but you know, there are mindsets people can
get into where essentially what is more important than whether
an experience is good or bad is just the intensity
of the experience.

Speaker 2 (33:12):
Yeah, kind of like watching Hell Raiser sequels, like it
reaches a point where you're like, am I having a
good time or is this hurting? Is there any difference anymore?

Speaker 3 (33:23):
What matters is sort of high activation.

Speaker 2 (33:27):
Yeah, was the how was the special effects makeup? Was
it good?

Speaker 3 (33:30):
Okay?

Speaker 2 (33:31):
Then then I gave it was strong? Then I guess
it was a worthwhile experience.

Speaker 3 (33:37):
All right. This next Weird House message is from Brian
on our episode on Beyond the Mind's Eye. This is
the one that's like all the Jon Hamer music videos
with CGI that some of which came from Lawn norm Man. Yeah,
Brian says, Hi, Robin Joe. Thanks so much much for

(34:00):
covering Beyond the Mind's Eye on Weird House last week.
It brought me back to some seminal memories of my
early days using the computer. In nineteen ninety three, when
I was twelve years old, my family got an IBM
for eighty six computer. In no time, I began spending
every day on it, learning to master MS DAWs six
point two, Windows three point one, and CE Basic. At

(34:22):
some point, one of my friends in middle school showed
me a pov ray and I was absolutely blown away.
I'd seen the oversized and overpriced magazines lining the shelves
of my local Barnes and Noble that focused exclusively on
the nascent world of computer generated imagery, but I never
thought I would be able to experiment with it myself.

(34:44):
It seemed to exist exclusively in the world of the Amiga,
a computer I'd never even laid eyes on. After my
friend explained to me the basics, I spent hours working
on my first visualization, and after a very long weekend,
I'd done it. I'd created a fl plane with three
or four very reflective spheres. Some were solid, some were checkerboard.

(35:06):
I was a new God. I remember being so proud
of the image that I actually printed it out in
full color. Imagine the cost to show to my parents
and friends. People weren't quite as blown away as I
expected them to be, but I was transfixed. As you
mentioned in the episode, the language to discuss the appearance
of CGI didn't even exist yet. I remember trying to

(35:29):
explain to people what I was about to show them
and finding it difficult to put into words. I would
describe it as follows quote. You know when you see
those images and they're like realer than real. They look real,
but they're almost too real, Like it can't be the
real thing because it's too perfect. That's what I'm about
to show you. Five minutes later, I'd pull up my

(35:50):
latest artscape created with an assemblage of cylinders, spheres, and planes.
Speaking of planes, I think I have an answer to
Joe's question about why the images were often described as
trippy or psychedelic.

Speaker 4 (36:05):
Ah.

Speaker 3 (36:05):
Yeah, to refresh from the episode, that was one of
the things we were sort of analyzing, Like, there's nothing
inherently psychedelic or suggestive of an experience with psychedelic drugs
about animation, So why was that such a common way
of explaining what things like beyond the mind's eye were.
Why did people compare it to drug related experiences. Brian's

(36:27):
answer is, in my opinion, it was a result of
the limitations of the platform. If one created a room
with six orthogonal planes and put a camera in the
center of said room with a specula or ambient light,
the result was not very impressive. It looked like not
very much. The creator had two options. One option was

(36:48):
to apply a pattern to the shape. My aforementioned checkerboard
sphere was a good example. This would create an interesting,
yet otherworldly room whose walls were for some reason patterned
like a checkerboard. The other option was to do away
with five of the planes and make the base plane
extend into virtual infinity. Once this was done, the user

(37:10):
had a wide open space in which to insert floating spheres, pyramids, cylinders, and,
if you were very good, something resembling a teapot. Slap
a camera in the middle of a gold desert populated
with floating pattern spheres, and the result is inevitably psychedelic.
Thanks for the memories. I don't have any of those

(37:31):
old print outs anymore, but I can still remember them
quite well. Learning pov ray as a twelve year old
was one of the greatest things I ever did on
the computer.

Speaker 2 (37:41):
Brian, Oh wow, a lot of great technical details there.
I like it.

Speaker 3 (37:47):
I can see what Brian's saying about the limitations of
the animation tending toward a representation of infinite planes, which
if you represent infinite planes with weird shapes just floating
in them, that does tend to suggest a kind of
visionary experience.

Speaker 2 (38:01):
You know. All this discussion also brought me back to
the old three D Mays screensaver on what was the
Windows ninety five, Yeah, which I hadn't thought about it
in a while, but I ran across this quote. This
is just in the wiki for it, but this is
from Jacob Brogan writing for Slade, who said that it

(38:22):
compared it to watching one's grandparents playing play Wolfenstein three D.
So I think that's it's a pretty great comparison. But
it was. I remember it being kind of mesmerizing and
feeling like really interesting, like, Wow, where's this Mayze taking us?

Speaker 3 (38:39):
You know, you take that Mayze screensaver, remove all the colors,
make the walls, floors and ceiling gray, and then you
got the Pumpkinhead game.

Speaker 2 (38:45):
Yeah, I mean I remember just loving the Starscape where
you know where it's like you're flying through space and
this is just the screen saver. You know, it's amazing.

Speaker 3 (38:56):
It was so simple, and that one, it was one
of my favorites. I love. Yeah, all those after dark
screen savers were pretty cool when I was in elementary school.

Speaker 2 (39:04):
Though nowadays I don't even use a screensaver. It's like, well,
the screen just shuts itself off. It just goes for
real black. That's it great, That's very exciting. It's kind
of where we are the relationship with computers these days.
It's like is it off good?

Speaker 3 (39:18):
Well? Mine has been doing that, but now I feel
like I got to go back to flying toasters. How
do I find a way to download that after we're
done recording?

Speaker 4 (39:25):
Now?

Speaker 2 (39:26):
Yeah, all right, let's see we have a few left
here in the immediate grab bag. Let's see, we had
a couple related to Labyrinth. So I want to read
at least one of these. May maybe we can do

(39:46):
more than one. But this one comes to us from Mike.
Mike says, hey, guys, I just wanted to say hi
and let you know how timely your Labyrinth episode was
My wife and I were just amazed at how one
of our friends had never seen or even heard of
this movie and discussed a watch party to view it.
Then I see your episode pop up for it kismet,
I say, Anywaho, great episode, as always, but I felt

(40:08):
I needed to also mention the various scenes where you
can find hidden images of Bowie's face embedded in the sets.
It is as though Jarif is always watching her. My
favorite example is where the camera pans by some boulders,
and as it does at one point, they all line
up perfectly to make the silhouette of his face for
a moment. It is awesome. Example below, and they include

(40:30):
a screen grab of this. Thanks as always. PS, I'm
keeping hope alive. You may one day cover Johnny Mnumonic
in a weird house. It is beyond fantastic, and I
promise worth your time to cover smiley face. Thanks Mike.

Speaker 3 (40:45):
I don't remember what part of the movie this was.

Speaker 2 (40:47):
This occurs. I think I think it's possible Sarah and
Hoggle move through here, and then there's another scene where
Hoggle and Jareff have like a powwoll near it. But
I've been interpreted different ways over the years, like is
it a sign is it a sign of his power
in his megalomania? You know, like he is like the
dictator of the Goblin realm here, so you know, his

(41:10):
face would be everywhere, and it is a place of
confusion and riddle and hidden meaning. So yes, of course
it would take this kind of form. But you could
also interpret it as sort of signifying his own sort
of imprisonment here. You know, like he here, he is
trapped in stone, and he is in a sense like
trapped here at the top of the Goblin world and
desperately wants maybe not escape. I don't not think escape.

(41:33):
Escape is possible for him or conceivable for him, but
he wants something different, and you know that is kind
of like his struggle in Labyrinth.

Speaker 3 (41:42):
Interesting, all right, you want to do one more about Labyrinth?
This one from Lauren.

Speaker 2 (41:47):
Sure.

Speaker 3 (41:53):
This is from Lauren, who says, Hi, Joe and Rob.
This male is in response to your recent episode on
nineteen eighty six is the labyrin I wanted to share
some of my experiences and thoughts. I first want to
talk about my initial encounters with this film in the
early nineties at the end of every school year, without fail,
the weird foreign art teacher at my elementary school in

(42:13):
Rhode Island would show the film and then have us
all make puppets afterwards. That sounds awesome to me. He
was an odd but seemingly harmless middle aged man with
a dark and dangly, villainous mustache. He used to tweeze
his nosehair as during class, propping up a little mirror
in front of him on his desk. I tried to

(42:33):
search him up on the Internet, but I have no
idea how to spell his Eastern European sounding last name. Anyways,
even as an elementary schooler, I remember thinking it was
odd that the school let him show this film to
a bunch of little kids every year, partially on account
of the mild horrors woven throughout the fantasy, but primarily
on account of the scandalousness of David Bowie's very tight
fitting pants. There were many hushed giggles about it. Anyways,

(42:57):
the yearly experience formed an interesting multi generational link between
all of the kids in town. During college. Once I
was camping with my older brother and his friends, I
was adjusting the rocks around the campfire and absent mindedly
said Ludo friends. One of my brother's friends from high
school heard me and perked up in the most enthusiastic

(43:19):
and childlike manner of all the shared experiences for people
to bond over. A side note, my older brother was
not part of this elementary school experience. My final comment
is about the riddle of the Four Nights. I always
got the sense that Sarah Jennifer Connelly's character was correct
in her puzzling out of the paradox, but it didn't

(43:39):
matter because she didn't consider the possibility that neither of
them actually knew, which door led to certain doom, that
they were just creatures of chaos and absurdity, like the
majority of the other critters in the labyrinth. Thanks as
always for the awesome content, Lauren.

Speaker 2 (43:56):
Well, that's possible. We talked about the underlying thought experience.
They're the underlying paradox, and like one of the keys
to the solution working is that truth cannot be lies.
If truth can be lies, then the whole thing falls apart.

Speaker 3 (44:09):
Yeah, and I guess the other way that could be
the case is if like neither of them are actually
bound to say true or falser. It's the whole thing's
just made up. They're just messing with her.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
I can't accept that. Though I've not too much about
this over time, they it has to be legit. But then,
of course it ends up apparently not mattering all that
much because she gets cocky and she says that the
labyrinth is a piece of cake, and then it's down
the hole. She goes into the opliat.

Speaker 3 (44:36):
You've got a sunk costs bias on this because you've
already put the work in on figuring out the riddle,
and like, if you've put that work in, you've got
to believe it means something.

Speaker 2 (44:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:46):
Wait, I feel like we need to do this one
Immortal Kombat. What do you think?

Speaker 2 (44:50):
Sure, let's do it. Let's flow through it. We go
one more and yeah, we've got a bunch of like
Halloween weird houses coming up, and I think that's going
to probably get a lot of listener feedback. So we
need to fit in the Mortal Kombat before we hit
all that. All right, This one's from CEB. CEB says, hi,

(45:11):
CB here loved your deep analysis of the Mortal Kombat movie.
It's corny, has a sense of fun to it and
makes you want to run a half marathon after listening
to the soundtrack. Anyway, you were confused about Johnny Cage's
photo in the movie. The photo is a nod to
the hardcore Mortal Kombat gamers out there when the movie
came out, Mortal Kombat two had been out for a while.
In that game, for Johnny Cage's friendship move, friendships were

(45:32):
an alternative to hitting your fatality, where something happy happens,
like I think, like Sheng Sung makes a rainbow appear
between his poems.

Speaker 3 (45:42):
You give your opponent a teddy bear.

Speaker 2 (45:44):
Yeah, that sort of thing. He signs a photo for
his enemy in the movie. By itself, it doesn't make
utter sense, but I guess they wanted to throw something
fun into the mix. As for bad DVD menus, there
are two DVD menus that I remember cursing at. One
of them was Memento and the other one was the
nineteen eighty five Transformers animated movie. The DVD menu for

(46:07):
Memento was designed like the Doctor's Notes. You had to
search for the playtab amongst post its and illegible doctor's
handwriting and Transformers. The movie had you going back and
forth in the menu trying to find the special features.

Speaker 3 (46:22):
Did this come up because we were talking about the
menu on the Free Jack DVD that was like a
classic nineteen ninety nine style DVD menu that had pages
like visit our website and it would just show you
a URL.

Speaker 2 (46:37):
Oh yeah, I mean, they don't make DVDs, and they
don't make special editions quite like they did with some
of those early DVD special editions, Like I had the
one for Big Trouble in Little China, and it just
had so many pages of extras. It had like little
hidden Easter eggs.

Speaker 3 (46:51):
It was a whole experience essentially games in the DVD menus.

Speaker 2 (46:55):
Yeah, yeah, so I missed that. I mean there's still,
as we often just go in Weird House, there's some
excellent special editions coming out these days and still coming out,
and they're reusing a lot of that older uh, that
older content. For instance, there's like a new revamped Blu
ray of Chronicles of Ridding coming out that looks really good.

(47:16):
But anyway, that's all beside the point.

Speaker 3 (47:19):
Yeah, I feel at least like the new ones that
are putting a lot of stuff in there. It's it's
pretty logically organized and it's easy to get to what
you want, instead of these older DVDs where it was
like the the navigation functionality on its own was like
a game, you know.

Speaker 2 (47:34):
Yes, yeah, Yeah, they've gotten so much better about just
the accessibility the presentation, especially with like these little like
the little menu that will pop up at the bottom
you can bring up while you're watching the film. Yeah,
these older DVDs were a lot clunkier, and yeah, sometimes
the menus were just clearly not designed with the viewer
experience in mind. Anyway, CB continues here speaking of the

(47:58):
DVDs and an affinity for Dungeons and Dragons. The Collector's
Edition for the Dungeons and Dragons animated show was great.
Not only was it loaded with special features, but it
came with a mini adventure supplement, four point five edition
character sheets for all the characters, and it all came
in a nice first edition red box. Before I go,
I want you to do a weird house cartoon series,
or at least deep dive on the series. The cartoon

(48:21):
series is called Liberty's Kids. It's by Diic Productions, which
should say a lot, but also adds to the mystery
of getting the voice actors the show is set during
the Revolutionary War and follows two kids as they help
out Ben Franklin with missions and his paper. Now. Ben
Franklin's voice is done by Walter Cronkite, Jefferson is voiced
by Dustin Hoffman, and one of the generals is supplied

(48:44):
by Arnold himself. I want to know WTF anyway, I've
written a lot have fun cep what.

Speaker 3 (48:52):
I did not know anything about Liberty's Kids. I did
not remember this at all, so I had to look
it up. It looks like it ran on PBS from
about two thousand and two to two thousand and three.
The animation style looks like a combination of Captain Planet
and The Magic School Bus if you can picture that.
But the voice cast is unbelievable for something I had

(49:15):
never heard of. So yeah, it's got cronkeyed is Ben Franklin,
Sylvester Stallone as Paul Revere, Ben Stiller as Thomas Jefferson.
The wiki says that I know in the email, CB
says that Dustin Hoffman was Jefferson, but the wikie says
Hoffman is Benedict Arnold, not Jefferson, and Ben Stiller is Jefferson.

(49:36):
Billy Crystal as John Adams by the way, obnoxious and unliked,
as they say, and At Benning as Abigail Adams, Michael
Douglas as Patrick Henry, and then Arnold Schwarzenegger as Baron
von Steuben, who was a Prussian officer who was crucial
in bringing like training an organization to the what he

(49:57):
thought was poorly organized and and untrained Continental Army. Also,
it had Whoopy Goldberg as Deborah Sampson, who famously disguised
herself as a man so she could fight in the
Continental Army. Had Liam Neeson bringing a particular set of
skills to the portrayal of John Paul Jones. And it
had Michael Yorke as Admiral Howe stacked cast. Can't believe

(50:19):
I've never heard of this.

Speaker 2 (50:20):
I'll also throw in that this also features the voice
the vocal talents of Jason Connery. So there you go,
Sean Connery's son.

Speaker 3 (50:28):
Wait, wait, does he play a spy? Did he play Hale?

Speaker 2 (50:33):
I'm pulling it up on IMDb here and I'm not
seeing the character name reference, but maybe that is the case.
It looks like he was in Let's see five different
episodes that.

Speaker 3 (50:43):
Would be a hilarious nod. I would cast him as
a spy because Sean Connery's do we say Sean Connery's brother,
If we did, that was his son, his son's I'm sorry,
Neil Connery. This is Jason, not Operation Kid Brother, Operation Son. Yes, okay, yeah, yeah,
this one is new to me. I had never heard

(51:03):
of this. I love when you find out about these
like I guess more often it's movies that I like.
How is it this star studded and I've never heard
of it before? But this is somehow even funnier because
it's a cartoon kids show about the Revolutionary War. Yeah, okay.
One last message this comes. It's also about Weird House.
Comes from our listener Milan. Subject line Weird House, free

(51:25):
Jack ending. Milan says, Hi, guys, longtime listener, first time emailer.
If this has been addressed in listener mail, just take
this as a fan who is desperate to have something
to message you about. I just had a small note
on your coverage of free Jack, specifically the ending. This

(51:48):
one is a real guilty pleasure since childhood, and I
think the ending made more sense than you gave it.
Credit for Mick Jagger's character let's furlong get away with
not knowing the identification number, perhaps part out of respect,
but mostly because if the transfer did not complete, he
would not get paid. Not to mention the black mark
and his reputation. Most of the movie is pretty ridiculous,

(52:10):
but it makes sense why Mick Jagger doesn't really care
who's in that body. Love what you guys do, So
thanks again for doing it, Milan. Now, Milan, I wanted
to feature this email for a couple of reasons. Number one,
I wanted to honor your effort in explaining this ending
that apparently went over our heads. But also I thought
it was funny because this episode was so long ago,

(52:33):
I have no idea what you're talking about.

Speaker 2 (52:37):
Yeah, there are a number of sensations and moments and
lines that stick with one from free Jack, but I
do vaguely remember this standoff of the end.

Speaker 3 (52:46):
Yeah, but anyway, I thought it was it was only
fair to let you make your case, So thank you, Milan.

Speaker 2 (52:52):
All right, Well, on that note, we're gonna go ahead
and send Carney back into the depths. We're going to
close up the mail bag, but we'll be back probably
sometime next month, sometime in October. We'll probably be back
with another listener mail episode, so keep it coming, and
certainly as we start rolling out our Halloween episodes, write
in with all of your thoughts, your comments, your observations,

(53:14):
and so forth. We'd love to hear from you.

Speaker 3 (53:16):
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com.

Speaker 1 (53:36):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.