May 8, 2023 • 24 mins
Once more, it's time for a weekly dose of Stuff to Blow Your Mind and Weirdhouse Cinema listener mail...
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. Listener mail.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
This is Robert Land, and this is Joe McCormick. And
it's Monday, the day of each week that we read
back some messages from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind mailbox.
If you've never gotten in touch before, why not give
it a try. You can reach us at contact at
Stuff to Blow Your Mind. Any kind of mail is
fair game. Obviously, we like feedback on recent episodes. If
(00:33):
you have anything interesting you want to add to a
topic we have covered on the show, If you have questions, corrections,
suggestions for new topics, or if you just want to
say hi, tell us your story, or just share something
generally interesting. Any of that's all right, send it on
to contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
All right, As we've been saying for a few weeks,
(00:54):
we've been working through all of the responses we got
to our series on childhood amnesia. Lots of people wanted
to share their earliest childhood memories or other commentary on
these episodes, and so of course we still have not
gotten near the bottom of all the messages we received
on that, but we're keeping on working through them, doing
a few at a time. So Rob, do you want
(01:16):
to kick us off today? Reading this message from column
who has written in before and we have called him Calm.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Oh well I don't remember that. Well apologies. Column. Column
rights then and says, hi, guys, thanks for reading out
my very short email about the orca looking after the
juvenile whale of another species. Oh yeah, that was just
a week or two ago. Yeah, this is my third
time writing in, and I thought i'd give you some
(01:45):
help in pronouncing my name. It's spelled Colm, but is
pronounced column like there are three columns in this spreadsheet.
The Irish spelling is Colm, the Scottish spelling is c
A L l Um, and the England version is colin
the old alien. Anyway, I wanted to tell you about
(02:05):
a very specific and very early childhood memory I have.
I was in my pram and I was being brought
around to our local corner shop by my mammy. Yes,
grown men in Ireland call their mom or mom mammy
their whole life. It's a small grocery shop that is
still there today. This was in late nineteen sixty nine
or early nineteen seventy as it was cold outside, and
(02:27):
I remember being well tucked in and setting up in
the pram. My Mammy parked me up outside and went
in to get her shopping. I remember some kids hanging
around outside the shop and one of the boys was
eating crisps. You call them potato chips. This boy gave
me a crisp, and what I remember is that I
had no teeth to chew it, and it felt hard
(02:48):
and salty against my gums. This leads me to believe
I must have only been between twelve and eighteen months old.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
This is just such a British Isles first memory. It's
gotten risps, it's got a pram, It's got boys giving
you crisps at the corner grocery.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah. Anyway, you both do trojan work, lads. Fair play
to you, and please do something about the subject of
lighthouses in the future. I mentioned it to Joe a
couple of years ago, and he said it was a
great idea. As far as I'm aware, you have never
covered the subject before, even in the Invention series.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
I think that's a great topic. Yeah, I guess we
just never got around to it.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Yeah, I don't know why not. Because I'm always I'm
like you, Joe. I mean, I'm always going on trips,
and I bet you often find yourself at strange lighthouses.
That's what that's what I do. It's like, there's a
weird lighthouse in the area, I'm gonna go see it.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
So I wake up in the middle of the night.
I am standing on a rocky shoreline, staring up at
the lighthouse, and it's calling to me. It's saying something.
Do you hear it? What is it saying. It's saying,
put the mask on now.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Yes, we're so excited about the mask as we just
we just recorded that episode this morning.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Oh. But also to summarize the end of column's message here,
he lets us know that he makes ambient music and
sends us a link to his band camp page. Of course, listeners, always,
if you make music, you are welcome to send it
our way. We can't promise we'll always have time to listen,
but if we get a moment, we will do our best,
and yeah, send us links to band camp pages. We
(04:23):
love music. We love band camp in particular as a
music hosting website. I'm a pretty big fan, so yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Listen to some of what he's in in. I like
the vibe. I love a nice ambient track. Lexicon of
sound dot bandcamp dot com. Well, thanks for writing in column.
I love the suggestion, and of course I love this
tidbit of a very early childhood memory with the crisps.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Okay, This next message about childhood amnesia is from Jen,
who says, good morning, love the podcast does a fellow
science geek and trained neuroscientists, I have a few questions
about your research into childhood amnesia. One, how does the
growth of the brain impact childhood memories, especially the tripling
in size during the first year of life. And how
(05:16):
does the growth of subcortical hippocampus and cortical regions e g. Language, auditory,
visual motor areas also impact early memories. Well, Jen, I'm
not sure of the full answer to your question, and
it's been a few weeks now since our episode, so
I hope I'm remembering what I do remember correctly. But
I do think it's commonly assumed that rapid structural development
(05:39):
in the young brain weakens the connections that form the
basis of long term memories. So whatever early episodic memories
are made kind of fall prey to that expansion and
development process you talked about, So I think this would
entail both the rapid growth and the plasticity of the
young brain that probably directly undermines the stability of episodic
(06:04):
memories formed in early life. The metaphor we used in
the episode, I'm still not sure if this is the
best metaphor. I'd be interested in getting feedback from more neuroscientists,
But we were thinking about it sort of like trying
to rebuild or renovate a house and moving into the
house at the same time. So you might be like
making memories in terms of setting up furniture and decorations
(06:26):
and a certain arrangement. But then if you have to
like rebuild the walls and rebuild a room and make
it bigger and add on new things to the house,
you will probably also have to end up rearranging all
of the things you've moved in as the house is rebuild. Okay,
this is jens second question. Most of the events I
remember from childhood involved getting into some kind of trouble.
(06:49):
I do remember many happy times too, as well as
some moments within daily routines, but I cannot remember day
to day routines at all. For example, when I got
up in the morning to go to school, did my
mom fix me breakfast? Did I fix it myself? Who
chose my clothes and helped me get dressed? During early
primary years? I remember snippets from upper elementary school, much
(07:12):
like the research you reported supports and looking at old
photos jog sum memories. But I find it fascinating that
such daily, routine events occurring over years of my childhood
would be gone. Is it because they are routine and unimportant?
Is it because I was cared for, well fed and
dressed ie growing up in a secure, safe and comfortable environment,
(07:35):
Jen another good question. I don't know for sure, but
this does connect to one of the things that we
talked about in our interview with David Eagleman, who is
a neuroscientist, and you know, when we were talking with him,
he brought up the idea that, of course, the brain
records fewer memories for event sequences that we perceive as
(07:55):
routine and mundane, and studies show the brain tends to
increase the density of memory detail for events that are
unusual and or highly salient for some reason, maybe they
have intense social salience, or survival salience. Also, some of
the studies we looked at made it seem like events
that are actively remembered more often are more likely to
(08:18):
be remembered for a longer time. They're less likely to
just fade away into nothingness, with the caveat being that
revisiting memories through storytelling or reminiscing often introduces changes to them.
But that seems like at least a partial two part
explanation for why mundane routine events would be remembered less.
You know, they're less likely to be recorded in detail
(08:39):
to begin with, because they're not these unusual or highly
salient events. And then second, routine events are not likely
to be revisited in memory very often, which makes them
more susceptible to fading over time. Again, as ral Julia
put it in the role of m Bison, for me,
it was Tuesday.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
You know, yeah, I mean, I mean that's one of
the things about we've discussed before, like going on a vacation,
it messes with your routine or forces to take on
new routines, and that routine may This may apply to
something as like, oh, well, on this trip, I'm going
to read first thing in the morning, whereas usually I
(09:18):
don't have time. Usually I don't have time for that
that sort of thing. Or it can just be like, oh, well,
I'm making my coffee here instead of instead of where
I normally make it, I'm using a slightly different machine.
It introduces all of these novel factors and new factors
and altered factors into indo your existing routines, and allows
the fostering of new routines, and therefore the whole trip
(09:40):
will then be more novel than you're just your average
daily week, even though you know, we find a lot
of comfort in routine. Yeah, it doesn't mean that the
comfortable moments are as memorable.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
But all that novelty means you're going to have way
more detailed memories about your vacation than you would an
equivalent length of time where you were just doing your
normal things staying home and working or whatever. Jen's third question,
what about our memory or lack of memory surrounding traumatic
events in childhood? How does our brain choose to block
(10:12):
or embed traumatic memories parentheses? This is a huge area
of research in recent years, and as a current elementary
school teacher in a low income community, the impact of
trauma on behavior on behavior and cognition is an ever
present concern. Jen, I would say, yeah, that is. I
don't know, but that is a very interesting and very
(10:32):
important question. Finally, Jen says, most of the research I
did as a neuroscientist involved language processing in adults and
studying impacts of brain trauma on disruption in language. So
my knowledge of the memory literature is lacking and focused
on adult memory. Plus, since switching careers, I haven't kept
up with current research. I know there are several theories
(10:53):
of how our memories, especially episodic memories, are quote organized
or quote stored in the brain. So my last question
is how do these theories inform childhood amnesia? Thanks for
reading this. I don't expect you to answer these questions. Phew.
Well that's a load off, but rather raise them as
things to keep in mind as you work on future
episodes of the topic. Well, this is kind of out
(11:15):
of order, isn't it now that we're reading this after
we finished the series. But yeah, this does raise important
questions and maybe we will return to the topic in
the future. This will give us more things to plow into.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Absolutely, all right, what do we have next? Looks like
we have some comments regarding our episode or episodes, I
guess at this point on the Telephone Game, right, So.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Well, I guess. First of all, I want to summarize
multiple responses we got concerning the version of the telephone
game that you play by switching back and forth between
text and drawings. So the game might begin with a
text phrase and then somebody has to draw that phrase,
and then the next player has to look at the
picture only and come up with what text that drawing
(12:01):
is supposed to represent, and then you just go back
and forth. Three Oh sorry, what.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
I was just going to say? I think what the
title that we threw out there for it was something
like cat Vomit poop Machine or something like cat Yeah, yeah,
something just horrible that we just had to read multiple
times off of our notes. And it turns out there
were better names for this.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
There are many names for it, So three different listeners
told us three different names for it. Eric writes in
to say he knows this game as Telephone Pictionary. Lindsay
says she has played a boxed version of this game
called Telestrations, and then Renata says she played an online
version of this game called draw Sception. So it seems
(12:43):
like the idea is so good it has come about
many times through conversion, evolution.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Bravo, yeah, or rebranding at least. I mean, all of
these titles are just far classier than what we were
dealing with. I like it draw sception especially. That's a
nice one, all right. Now here's one from Dan. Dan
writes in and says Kia Orra Robin Joe. I am
(13:11):
writing in response to your episode on the Telephone Game.
As my trade is in theater and comedy. Your discussion
around the recounting of stories via oral tradition and the
omission of detail via retelling got me thinking about the
stage play Mister Burns by Anne Washburn. The play deals
with many of those themes in a very clever and
(13:31):
funny way. The play is in three distinct acts. The
first is immediately after a series of simultaneous nuclear meltdowns
across the grid have reduced the United States to a
post electrical civilization. A small group of survivors sit around
a campfire and pass the time and reconnect to their
(13:52):
pre meltdown lives. They attempt to recall an episode of
The Simpsons, the spectacular Cape Fear episode. While some of
them weren't familiar with the show. We see others teaching
the other individuals the material secondhand. No, No, it's excellent.
And then he does the thing with his fingers or
and is it then that he steps on all of
(14:13):
the rakes. We watch them change a televised story into
an oral tradition, teaching the characters, the gags and the
references initiating.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
The acolytes love this already.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Yep, yep, yep, this sounds fun. The second act is
set approximately twenty years later. The group have become a
company of traveling players and travel the post electrical wasteland
performing episodes of The Simpsons Live for Water, Coin and Food.
We see them rehearsing the couch gag at the start
of the episode and all dressed in costume as the
(14:44):
various characters, and see how the Simpsons characters are shifting
from cartoons to mythic archetypal characters. They're obsessed with getting
it right. They even do ad breaks, and there's tell
that over in sector nineteen there's a guy who use
to work on SNL. The final act, and the hardest
to pull off, is set seventy five years later. It
(15:06):
is the staging of what is, to all intents and purposes,
a religious ceremony where the personal history of the nuclear
disaster is superimposed onto the narrative of Cape Fear, and
the Simpson's characters become a representative rather than literal. For example,
mister Burns aptly becomes the fear of radiation, and add
(15:27):
in random Britney Spears lyrics you know that He's toxic
and eminem references you get an incredible glimpse of a
possible future of storytelling and myth making, all assembled from
pop culture. The characters in the play build their own
legends and ways to understand the world, ways to pass
on their oral history, to warn of the dangers of
going into nuclear facilities and the hazard of invisible radiation,
(15:51):
all through song, dance, plain, song, ceremony. The demons Itchy
and Scratchy, the everyman Homer and his beautiful family, the
law in order of Chief with them, and always always,
the encroaching minutes of a spindly nightmarish mister Burns. It's
quite a ride, and if you get the chance, I
highly recommend it. Thanks for all you do. The show
(16:12):
is a regular part of my week and I always
look forward to new episodes.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Dan, Wow, that sounds great. I think I would love
this play.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Yeah, that's that's that's inventive to keep an eye out
for anyone putting this on. And indeed, yeah, this is
a This is something that, like I said, probably capture
my imagination the most in those episodes. It's the society
of oral transmission of things that that are culturally important
(16:41):
and what happens to those things over time and something
like The Simpsons. I mean it is culturally important. You know,
a lot of the things that we don't think of.
They're certainly not high culture, but they help us understand
our lives that it helps us sort of take whatever
kind of challenges we're facing or Monday details of our
life and kind of like cast it into some sort
(17:03):
of maybe not sacred form, but at least some sort
of like humorous and timeless form that corresponds with the
with the saga of the Simpsons. Now, as with any
religious text, there are a lot of books that are
gonna end up being thrown out. I think, you know,
I'm not a Simpson's completest. I think there's a lot
of stuff that you're gonna end up cutting in order
(17:27):
to have a nice concise scripture.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Cape fears are gooding to work from, though, Yeah yeah, okay.
This next message is a short response to our Vault
episodes on the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary. This is from Cindy.
Cindy says, I submit to you the vegetable ram of Tartary.
(17:51):
Picture and link to real included below. I think this
is a screen grab from Instagram. Cindy says, I really
listened to the Vault episodes on the Vegetable Lamb, and
then Amy Sidaris posted this video. Decided the coincidence was
too great not to share. Thanks for all the great
podcast episodes. They keep me entertained as I progress through
my day. Cindy, what we're looking at here is like
(18:12):
an outdoor grill that that has a ram with curling
horns that might be made of like carrots or peppers
or something. But the ram's body with all the wool
is a head of cauliflower and it looks really good.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Yeah it is. This looks nice. I remember seeing this
on Amy Sedaris's Instagram. She's one of the few celebrity
types that I followed because her Instagram game is on point.
But I didn't put that together. I didn't think, ah,
vegetable ram of Tartari here very solid.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Thanks for sharing, Cindy, as I'm not on the GRAM
so I never would have seen this otherwise.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
All right, shall we dive into a little weird house
cinema listener mail? Oh? Yes, this first one comes to
us from Carl Sennen, says Dear Robin Joe, thanks for
featuring the nineteen fifty three House of Wax. This is
one of the first I remember well do a lock
(19:09):
to its three D effects and vincent price. I really
liked learning that it featured several actors and actresses that
I later liked, but had no idea who they were
at the time. The scenes I remember the most were
when Professor Jared drops Burke's body down an elevator shaft
and when he swings with the grappling hook to Kathy's window,
(19:29):
both with max three D jump scare effect. Also I
remember the paddleball sequences, But over the years I lost
the association with House of Wax. Maybe my nine year
old mind was trying to make sense of an otherwise
somewhat random but fun insertion in the plot.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
When you're nine. It's like, you see the thing where
he like fits that he like knocks the three different
balls from the paddleballs into his mouth all at the
same time, and you're just like that, is that unique
to this or is that just something adults do?
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Or is this the first movie. It's like, I guess
all movies have this. You're gonna want to have somebody
doing paddleball tricks during the middle of the movie just
to keep things rolling. Remember that scene in The Godfather
where a guy comes out with a pair of paddle balls.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, We're in the middle of Solaris and
here comes the paddleballs. The balls go in the mouth,
the three in the mouth, all in a row, all.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Right, Carl continues here. At that age, I related much
more to the Professor Jared character than any others, and
was rooting for him all the way to the tragic end.
Price's portrayal of him really brought out the pathos and
sympathy for his character with formative me As for Vincent Price,
he was a favorite of my parents, dad, especially later on.
(20:43):
We had a coffee table book about him that I enjoyed.
He was quite a refined art expert, epicurean and enophile.
That means he was a connoisseur of wines, and that
part helped me appreciate the finer things of life to
this day. Later, he got me interested in Edgar Allan Post,
one of my favorite authors and poets. Another reason I
remember this movie so much is that it was one
(21:05):
of the few in my early years that we saw
in a proper theater. Growing up in a small Nebraska town,
we attended many movies, but usually at the drive in theater,
which was way more practical for our family of six
on a tight budget. I really enjoy most weird house
cinema reviewed movies. I've collected several of them based on
your deep dives, but this one was extra special, so
(21:29):
many thanks. Now I need to screen it again, hoping
I won't be disappointed in its quality without the three
D enhancement and with my adult perspective, but I'll enjoy
following the actors more. Best car. Oh and we have
an almost immediate follow up from Karl, so I'll read
this as well. Dear Robin Joe, Again, I just finished
House of Wax, presumably the rewatch here, and I must
(21:51):
say I certainly misremembered a lot in these seventy intervening years.
The scares I remember were not at all that scary,
and the story was more interesting than I remember. I
think maybe the three D made some effects better in
the immersive theater experience or something. I also got the
window entrance wrong. It was Sue, not Kathy. Anyway, I
(22:12):
did enjoy it and we'll probably watch it again. Just
wanted you to know that it was a great trip
down memory lane and a good example of a kid's
imagination running them up to generate new impressions of past events.
And the paddleball guy was amazing. Carl. Thanks Carl, Well
that's great again. I love anytime we get to hear
about people who got to see any of these movies
(22:34):
in the theater, be the older or more recent films.
And you know, this is spot on about Vincent Price.
I think the Vincent Price element that he brings is
that he makes just about any villain he plays likable
on some level, even no matter how far they lean
into making them dastardly. It's just his portrayal is so alive,
(22:55):
it's so charismatic. He'll win you over, at least to
some extent. Maybe he'll cross the lines. Character crosses the
line at some point in the movie. But you know,
also a lot of the films he goes in, there's
a certain balance of camp that allows you to go
ahead and root for the villain because you're able to
separate yourself from it. So yeah, even is he's about
(23:15):
to cover Sue and Wax, you know, you're still at
least halfway rooting for him.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
You know, maybe he was right to do that, Maybe
we all should be turned into wax materials. But no, Yeah,
like I said in the Weird House episode, I mean, yeah,
that's the Vincent Price magic. Even as Prince Prospero in
Mask of the Red Death, the character is supposed to
be just cruelty, decadence and wickedness incarnate, and yet you
(23:40):
still you kind of like him.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
All right, Well, I think we got to wrap it
up there for today, but we've got plenty more messages
to read when Listener Mail comes around again next week.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
That's right. And when does it come around, Well, it
arises from the miss every Monday, that's when listener mail.
Or but hey, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, that's when when
you'll encounter our core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
On Wednesdays, a monster fact or an artifact creeps into
the scenario, and by Friday while there's no stopping a
(24:13):
weird House cinema episode from rampaging across the feed.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Huge thanks to our 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 (24:38):
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.
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. Listener mail.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
This is Robert Land, and this is Joe McCormick. And
it's Monday, the day of each week that we read
back some messages from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind mailbox.
If you've never gotten in touch before, why not give
it a try. You can reach us at contact at
Stuff to Blow Your Mind. Any kind of mail is
fair game. Obviously, we like feedback on recent episodes. If
(00:33):
you have anything interesting you want to add to a
topic we have covered on the show, If you have questions, corrections,
suggestions for new topics, or if you just want to
say hi, tell us your story, or just share something
generally interesting. Any of that's all right, send it on
to contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
All right, As we've been saying for a few weeks,
(00:54):
we've been working through all of the responses we got
to our series on childhood amnesia. Lots of people wanted
to share their earliest childhood memories or other commentary on
these episodes, and so of course we still have not
gotten near the bottom of all the messages we received
on that, but we're keeping on working through them, doing
a few at a time. So Rob, do you want
(01:16):
to kick us off today? Reading this message from column
who has written in before and we have called him Calm.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Oh well I don't remember that. Well apologies. Column. Column
rights then and says, hi, guys, thanks for reading out
my very short email about the orca looking after the
juvenile whale of another species. Oh yeah, that was just
a week or two ago. Yeah, this is my third
time writing in, and I thought i'd give you some
(01:45):
help in pronouncing my name. It's spelled Colm, but is
pronounced column like there are three columns in this spreadsheet.
The Irish spelling is Colm, the Scottish spelling is c
A L l Um, and the England version is colin
the old alien. Anyway, I wanted to tell you about
(02:05):
a very specific and very early childhood memory I have.
I was in my pram and I was being brought
around to our local corner shop by my mammy. Yes,
grown men in Ireland call their mom or mom mammy
their whole life. It's a small grocery shop that is
still there today. This was in late nineteen sixty nine
or early nineteen seventy as it was cold outside, and
(02:27):
I remember being well tucked in and setting up in
the pram. My Mammy parked me up outside and went
in to get her shopping. I remember some kids hanging
around outside the shop and one of the boys was
eating crisps. You call them potato chips. This boy gave
me a crisp, and what I remember is that I
had no teeth to chew it, and it felt hard
(02:48):
and salty against my gums. This leads me to believe
I must have only been between twelve and eighteen months old.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
This is just such a British Isles first memory. It's
gotten risps, it's got a pram, It's got boys giving
you crisps at the corner grocery.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah. Anyway, you both do trojan work, lads. Fair play
to you, and please do something about the subject of
lighthouses in the future. I mentioned it to Joe a
couple of years ago, and he said it was a
great idea. As far as I'm aware, you have never
covered the subject before, even in the Invention series.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
I think that's a great topic. Yeah, I guess we
just never got around to it.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Yeah, I don't know why not. Because I'm always I'm
like you, Joe. I mean, I'm always going on trips,
and I bet you often find yourself at strange lighthouses.
That's what that's what I do. It's like, there's a
weird lighthouse in the area, I'm gonna go see it.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
So I wake up in the middle of the night.
I am standing on a rocky shoreline, staring up at
the lighthouse, and it's calling to me. It's saying something.
Do you hear it? What is it saying. It's saying,
put the mask on now.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Yes, we're so excited about the mask as we just
we just recorded that episode this morning.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Oh. But also to summarize the end of column's message here,
he lets us know that he makes ambient music and
sends us a link to his band camp page. Of course, listeners, always,
if you make music, you are welcome to send it
our way. We can't promise we'll always have time to listen,
but if we get a moment, we will do our best,
and yeah, send us links to band camp pages. We
(04:23):
love music. We love band camp in particular as a
music hosting website. I'm a pretty big fan, so yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Listen to some of what he's in in. I like
the vibe. I love a nice ambient track. Lexicon of
sound dot bandcamp dot com. Well, thanks for writing in column.
I love the suggestion, and of course I love this
tidbit of a very early childhood memory with the crisps.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Okay, This next message about childhood amnesia is from Jen,
who says, good morning, love the podcast does a fellow
science geek and trained neuroscientists, I have a few questions
about your research into childhood amnesia. One, how does the
growth of the brain impact childhood memories, especially the tripling
in size during the first year of life. And how
(05:16):
does the growth of subcortical hippocampus and cortical regions e g. Language, auditory,
visual motor areas also impact early memories. Well, Jen, I'm
not sure of the full answer to your question, and
it's been a few weeks now since our episode, so
I hope I'm remembering what I do remember correctly. But
I do think it's commonly assumed that rapid structural development
(05:39):
in the young brain weakens the connections that form the
basis of long term memories. So whatever early episodic memories
are made kind of fall prey to that expansion and
development process you talked about, So I think this would
entail both the rapid growth and the plasticity of the
young brain that probably directly undermines the stability of episodic
(06:04):
memories formed in early life. The metaphor we used in
the episode, I'm still not sure if this is the
best metaphor. I'd be interested in getting feedback from more neuroscientists,
But we were thinking about it sort of like trying
to rebuild or renovate a house and moving into the
house at the same time. So you might be like
making memories in terms of setting up furniture and decorations
(06:26):
and a certain arrangement. But then if you have to
like rebuild the walls and rebuild a room and make
it bigger and add on new things to the house,
you will probably also have to end up rearranging all
of the things you've moved in as the house is rebuild. Okay,
this is jens second question. Most of the events I
remember from childhood involved getting into some kind of trouble.
(06:49):
I do remember many happy times too, as well as
some moments within daily routines, but I cannot remember day
to day routines at all. For example, when I got
up in the morning to go to school, did my
mom fix me breakfast? Did I fix it myself? Who
chose my clothes and helped me get dressed? During early
primary years? I remember snippets from upper elementary school, much
(07:12):
like the research you reported supports and looking at old
photos jog sum memories. But I find it fascinating that
such daily, routine events occurring over years of my childhood
would be gone. Is it because they are routine and unimportant?
Is it because I was cared for, well fed and
dressed ie growing up in a secure, safe and comfortable environment,
(07:35):
Jen another good question. I don't know for sure, but
this does connect to one of the things that we
talked about in our interview with David Eagleman, who is
a neuroscientist, and you know, when we were talking with him,
he brought up the idea that, of course, the brain
records fewer memories for event sequences that we perceive as
(07:55):
routine and mundane, and studies show the brain tends to
increase the density of memory detail for events that are
unusual and or highly salient for some reason, maybe they
have intense social salience, or survival salience. Also, some of
the studies we looked at made it seem like events
that are actively remembered more often are more likely to
(08:18):
be remembered for a longer time. They're less likely to
just fade away into nothingness, with the caveat being that
revisiting memories through storytelling or reminiscing often introduces changes to them.
But that seems like at least a partial two part
explanation for why mundane routine events would be remembered less.
You know, they're less likely to be recorded in detail
(08:39):
to begin with, because they're not these unusual or highly
salient events. And then second, routine events are not likely
to be revisited in memory very often, which makes them
more susceptible to fading over time. Again, as ral Julia
put it in the role of m Bison, for me,
it was Tuesday.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
You know, yeah, I mean, I mean that's one of
the things about we've discussed before, like going on a vacation,
it messes with your routine or forces to take on
new routines, and that routine may This may apply to
something as like, oh, well, on this trip, I'm going
to read first thing in the morning, whereas usually I
(09:18):
don't have time. Usually I don't have time for that
that sort of thing. Or it can just be like, oh, well,
I'm making my coffee here instead of instead of where
I normally make it, I'm using a slightly different machine.
It introduces all of these novel factors and new factors
and altered factors into indo your existing routines, and allows
the fostering of new routines, and therefore the whole trip
(09:40):
will then be more novel than you're just your average
daily week, even though you know, we find a lot
of comfort in routine. Yeah, it doesn't mean that the
comfortable moments are as memorable.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
But all that novelty means you're going to have way
more detailed memories about your vacation than you would an
equivalent length of time where you were just doing your
normal things staying home and working or whatever. Jen's third question,
what about our memory or lack of memory surrounding traumatic
events in childhood? How does our brain choose to block
(10:12):
or embed traumatic memories parentheses? This is a huge area
of research in recent years, and as a current elementary
school teacher in a low income community, the impact of
trauma on behavior on behavior and cognition is an ever
present concern. Jen, I would say, yeah, that is. I
don't know, but that is a very interesting and very
(10:32):
important question. Finally, Jen says, most of the research I
did as a neuroscientist involved language processing in adults and
studying impacts of brain trauma on disruption in language. So
my knowledge of the memory literature is lacking and focused
on adult memory. Plus, since switching careers, I haven't kept
up with current research. I know there are several theories
(10:53):
of how our memories, especially episodic memories, are quote organized
or quote stored in the brain. So my last question
is how do these theories inform childhood amnesia? Thanks for
reading this. I don't expect you to answer these questions. Phew.
Well that's a load off, but rather raise them as
things to keep in mind as you work on future
episodes of the topic. Well, this is kind of out
(11:15):
of order, isn't it now that we're reading this after
we finished the series. But yeah, this does raise important
questions and maybe we will return to the topic in
the future. This will give us more things to plow into.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Absolutely, all right, what do we have next? Looks like
we have some comments regarding our episode or episodes, I
guess at this point on the Telephone Game, right, So.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Well, I guess. First of all, I want to summarize
multiple responses we got concerning the version of the telephone
game that you play by switching back and forth between
text and drawings. So the game might begin with a
text phrase and then somebody has to draw that phrase,
and then the next player has to look at the
picture only and come up with what text that drawing
(12:01):
is supposed to represent, and then you just go back
and forth. Three Oh sorry, what.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
I was just going to say? I think what the
title that we threw out there for it was something
like cat Vomit poop Machine or something like cat Yeah, yeah,
something just horrible that we just had to read multiple
times off of our notes. And it turns out there
were better names for this.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
There are many names for it, So three different listeners
told us three different names for it. Eric writes in
to say he knows this game as Telephone Pictionary. Lindsay
says she has played a boxed version of this game
called Telestrations, and then Renata says she played an online
version of this game called draw Sception. So it seems
(12:43):
like the idea is so good it has come about
many times through conversion, evolution.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Bravo, yeah, or rebranding at least. I mean, all of
these titles are just far classier than what we were
dealing with. I like it draw sception especially. That's a
nice one, all right. Now here's one from Dan. Dan
writes in and says Kia Orra Robin Joe. I am
(13:11):
writing in response to your episode on the Telephone Game.
As my trade is in theater and comedy. Your discussion
around the recounting of stories via oral tradition and the
omission of detail via retelling got me thinking about the
stage play Mister Burns by Anne Washburn. The play deals
with many of those themes in a very clever and
(13:31):
funny way. The play is in three distinct acts. The
first is immediately after a series of simultaneous nuclear meltdowns
across the grid have reduced the United States to a
post electrical civilization. A small group of survivors sit around
a campfire and pass the time and reconnect to their
(13:52):
pre meltdown lives. They attempt to recall an episode of
The Simpsons, the spectacular Cape Fear episode. While some of
them weren't familiar with the show. We see others teaching
the other individuals the material secondhand. No, No, it's excellent.
And then he does the thing with his fingers or
and is it then that he steps on all of
(14:13):
the rakes. We watch them change a televised story into
an oral tradition, teaching the characters, the gags and the
references initiating.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
The acolytes love this already.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Yep, yep, yep, this sounds fun. The second act is
set approximately twenty years later. The group have become a
company of traveling players and travel the post electrical wasteland
performing episodes of The Simpsons Live for Water, Coin and Food.
We see them rehearsing the couch gag at the start
of the episode and all dressed in costume as the
(14:44):
various characters, and see how the Simpsons characters are shifting
from cartoons to mythic archetypal characters. They're obsessed with getting
it right. They even do ad breaks, and there's tell
that over in sector nineteen there's a guy who use
to work on SNL. The final act, and the hardest
to pull off, is set seventy five years later. It
(15:06):
is the staging of what is, to all intents and purposes,
a religious ceremony where the personal history of the nuclear
disaster is superimposed onto the narrative of Cape Fear, and
the Simpson's characters become a representative rather than literal. For example,
mister Burns aptly becomes the fear of radiation, and add
(15:27):
in random Britney Spears lyrics you know that He's toxic
and eminem references you get an incredible glimpse of a
possible future of storytelling and myth making, all assembled from
pop culture. The characters in the play build their own
legends and ways to understand the world, ways to pass
on their oral history, to warn of the dangers of
going into nuclear facilities and the hazard of invisible radiation,
(15:51):
all through song, dance, plain, song, ceremony. The demons Itchy
and Scratchy, the everyman Homer and his beautiful family, the
law in order of Chief with them, and always always,
the encroaching minutes of a spindly nightmarish mister Burns. It's
quite a ride, and if you get the chance, I
highly recommend it. Thanks for all you do. The show
(16:12):
is a regular part of my week and I always
look forward to new episodes.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Dan, Wow, that sounds great. I think I would love
this play.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Yeah, that's that's that's inventive to keep an eye out
for anyone putting this on. And indeed, yeah, this is
a This is something that, like I said, probably capture
my imagination the most in those episodes. It's the society
of oral transmission of things that that are culturally important
(16:41):
and what happens to those things over time and something
like The Simpsons. I mean it is culturally important. You know,
a lot of the things that we don't think of.
They're certainly not high culture, but they help us understand
our lives that it helps us sort of take whatever
kind of challenges we're facing or Monday details of our
life and kind of like cast it into some sort
(17:03):
of maybe not sacred form, but at least some sort
of like humorous and timeless form that corresponds with the
with the saga of the Simpsons. Now, as with any
religious text, there are a lot of books that are
gonna end up being thrown out. I think, you know,
I'm not a Simpson's completest. I think there's a lot
of stuff that you're gonna end up cutting in order
(17:27):
to have a nice concise scripture.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Cape fears are gooding to work from, though, Yeah yeah, okay.
This next message is a short response to our Vault
episodes on the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary. This is from Cindy.
Cindy says, I submit to you the vegetable ram of Tartary.
(17:51):
Picture and link to real included below. I think this
is a screen grab from Instagram. Cindy says, I really
listened to the Vault episodes on the Vegetable Lamb, and
then Amy Sidaris posted this video. Decided the coincidence was
too great not to share. Thanks for all the great
podcast episodes. They keep me entertained as I progress through
my day. Cindy, what we're looking at here is like
(18:12):
an outdoor grill that that has a ram with curling
horns that might be made of like carrots or peppers
or something. But the ram's body with all the wool
is a head of cauliflower and it looks really good.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Yeah it is. This looks nice. I remember seeing this
on Amy Sedaris's Instagram. She's one of the few celebrity
types that I followed because her Instagram game is on point.
But I didn't put that together. I didn't think, ah,
vegetable ram of Tartari here very solid.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Thanks for sharing, Cindy, as I'm not on the GRAM
so I never would have seen this otherwise.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
All right, shall we dive into a little weird house
cinema listener mail? Oh? Yes, this first one comes to
us from Carl Sennen, says Dear Robin Joe, thanks for
featuring the nineteen fifty three House of Wax. This is
one of the first I remember well do a lock
(19:09):
to its three D effects and vincent price. I really
liked learning that it featured several actors and actresses that
I later liked, but had no idea who they were
at the time. The scenes I remember the most were
when Professor Jared drops Burke's body down an elevator shaft
and when he swings with the grappling hook to Kathy's window,
(19:29):
both with max three D jump scare effect. Also I
remember the paddleball sequences, But over the years I lost
the association with House of Wax. Maybe my nine year
old mind was trying to make sense of an otherwise
somewhat random but fun insertion in the plot.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
When you're nine. It's like, you see the thing where
he like fits that he like knocks the three different
balls from the paddleballs into his mouth all at the
same time, and you're just like that, is that unique
to this or is that just something adults do?
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Or is this the first movie. It's like, I guess
all movies have this. You're gonna want to have somebody
doing paddleball tricks during the middle of the movie just
to keep things rolling. Remember that scene in The Godfather
where a guy comes out with a pair of paddle balls.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, We're in the middle of Solaris and
here comes the paddleballs. The balls go in the mouth,
the three in the mouth, all in a row, all.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Right, Carl continues here. At that age, I related much
more to the Professor Jared character than any others, and
was rooting for him all the way to the tragic end.
Price's portrayal of him really brought out the pathos and
sympathy for his character with formative me As for Vincent Price,
he was a favorite of my parents, dad, especially later on.
(20:43):
We had a coffee table book about him that I enjoyed.
He was quite a refined art expert, epicurean and enophile.
That means he was a connoisseur of wines, and that
part helped me appreciate the finer things of life to
this day. Later, he got me interested in Edgar Allan Post,
one of my favorite authors and poets. Another reason I
remember this movie so much is that it was one
(21:05):
of the few in my early years that we saw
in a proper theater. Growing up in a small Nebraska town,
we attended many movies, but usually at the drive in theater,
which was way more practical for our family of six
on a tight budget. I really enjoy most weird house
cinema reviewed movies. I've collected several of them based on
your deep dives, but this one was extra special, so
(21:29):
many thanks. Now I need to screen it again, hoping
I won't be disappointed in its quality without the three
D enhancement and with my adult perspective, but I'll enjoy
following the actors more. Best car. Oh and we have
an almost immediate follow up from Karl, so I'll read
this as well. Dear Robin Joe, Again, I just finished
House of Wax, presumably the rewatch here, and I must
(21:51):
say I certainly misremembered a lot in these seventy intervening years.
The scares I remember were not at all that scary,
and the story was more interesting than I remember. I
think maybe the three D made some effects better in
the immersive theater experience or something. I also got the
window entrance wrong. It was Sue, not Kathy. Anyway, I
(22:12):
did enjoy it and we'll probably watch it again. Just
wanted you to know that it was a great trip
down memory lane and a good example of a kid's
imagination running them up to generate new impressions of past events.
And the paddleball guy was amazing. Carl. Thanks Carl, Well
that's great again. I love anytime we get to hear
about people who got to see any of these movies
(22:34):
in the theater, be the older or more recent films.
And you know, this is spot on about Vincent Price.
I think the Vincent Price element that he brings is
that he makes just about any villain he plays likable
on some level, even no matter how far they lean
into making them dastardly. It's just his portrayal is so alive,
(22:55):
it's so charismatic. He'll win you over, at least to
some extent. Maybe he'll cross the lines. Character crosses the
line at some point in the movie. But you know,
also a lot of the films he goes in, there's
a certain balance of camp that allows you to go
ahead and root for the villain because you're able to
separate yourself from it. So yeah, even is he's about
(23:15):
to cover Sue and Wax, you know, you're still at
least halfway rooting for him.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
You know, maybe he was right to do that, Maybe
we all should be turned into wax materials. But no, Yeah,
like I said in the Weird House episode, I mean, yeah,
that's the Vincent Price magic. Even as Prince Prospero in
Mask of the Red Death, the character is supposed to
be just cruelty, decadence and wickedness incarnate, and yet you
(23:40):
still you kind of like him.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
All right, Well, I think we got to wrap it
up there for today, but we've got plenty more messages
to read when Listener Mail comes around again next week.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
That's right. And when does it come around, Well, it
arises from the miss every Monday, that's when listener mail.
Or but hey, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, that's when when
you'll encounter our core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
On Wednesdays, a monster fact or an artifact creeps into
the scenario, and by Friday while there's no stopping a
(24:13):
weird House cinema episode from rampaging across the feed.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Huge thanks to our 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 (24:38):
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.
Stuff To Blow Your Mind News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Lamb
Joe McCormick
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