December 31, 2024 • 44 mins
Once more, it's time for a 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.
My name is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
And I am Joe McCormick. And hey, we're coming at
you with new stuff after roughly a week or so off.
Do we say this was a listener mail episode? I
think you did. But if we didn't, here, yeah, here
we are with listener mail for you. Hey, if you
are a listener of Stuff to Blow your Mind and
you have never gotten in touch before, this is a
great time to try it. You can email us at
contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Messages
(00:37):
of all sorts are welcome. We especially appreciate feedback to
any episodes, recent or older episodes, if you want, if
you've got thoughts to add, something interesting, to build on
anything we brought up in the episode, of course, if
you ever have corrections if necessary, If you have just
something interesting you want to share with us, we got
some messages of that sort here today, Or if you
(00:58):
just want to tell us what you like about the
show where you listen from that kind of thing. All
all sorts of messages are welcome. Contact at Stuff to
Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
You can also ask to join the Discord server by
emailing us to that address.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
All right, Rob, if you don't mind, I think we
should kick things off today with actually a couple of
messages from our listener Robin, one about ancient art and
another one about festive holiday cocktails. We're sort of we're
past the point for one season of holiday cocktails, but
just in time for another. All right, I'll start with
the one about art. So this is from Robin. Robin says, Hey, Rob,
(01:40):
Joe and JJ just a quick email with some cool
stuff I came across, maybe fodder for future topics. Sometimes
the almighty cursed algorithm actually digs up something worthwhile, and
I got served up an image of an ancient sculpture
from early history with a quick line of description. Intrigued,
I dug a bit more into the Gwynall line. Gwinnall,
(02:01):
if you're trying to look this up, is spelled gue nnol.
That's a Welsh word apparently meaning Martin. And just for
a bit of description, The Gwynall Lioness is a roughly
five thousand year old limestone statuette. It's a little over
eight centimeters tall and it shows a lion human hybrid form.
(02:23):
It's posed in a very interesting way. So we see
it from the thighs up to the head. The lower
parts of the legs I don't know if they ever existed.
If they did, they're no longer attached to the rest
of the statuette. But we see from the thighs up
and so it's a lion human form with sort of
the upright torso of a human body, but with a
(02:44):
lion's head. No Maine, just a manless lion. And also,
I don't know, the hands to me look like they're
supposed to be maybe lion claws, but this could be interpreted.
I guess it's just fingers. But it's a very unusual
interesting pose. First of all, the figure is extremely muscular,
and second of all, it's got its fists or claws
(03:05):
like pushed together with its elbows bent up. I don't
know what you would call this arm posture, but it's
like just raise your arms up and push your fists
together in front of your chest. And it's also sort
of rotating at the torso, so it looks like it's
doing some kind of exercise. I don't know if this
is like a pilates move.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yeah, this looks a lot like the bodybuilding pose that
is called the most muscular, except in the most muscular
like the fists are not like touching, they're like crisscrossing.
You've all seen this one if you've seen any amount
of bodybuilding, just clips you know, you know Arnold Schwarzenegger
back in the day, that sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
So, this statuette was allegedly found near modern day bagh Dad.
I don't know if it's known exactly when it was found,
but the trading history of it and collections seems to
begin in the early nineteen thirties, so it seemed it
was found somewhere around Baghdad before that time, in the
early nineteen thirties and held for a while in the
private collection of a guy who was I guess a
(04:09):
major tennis player named Alistair Bradley Martin who was also
an art collector. But it's been on display at some museums,
I believe the Brooklyn Museum in New York and so forth.
But anyway, I'm going to continue with Robin's message here
about this statuette. Robin says, holy mackinaw, what a fascinating
and gorgeous piece of art, but even better in the
(04:30):
Wikipedia article on this artwork, the first link in the
further reading tab is a book called Art of the
First Cities the third millennium BC, from the Mediterranean to
the Indus, edited by Joan ruse at All. That book
is downloadable as a PDF from the link provided there.
And wow, is that ever a treasure of incredible art
from the distant past. I love seeing the connections, similarities
(04:54):
and the different takes on common subjects of art and
expression by different people in the past. Early artwork gives
me the shivers in the best way. I find a
real connection can be forged with the artist, and to
think about who they were and when they were living, well,
it really blows my mind. As they say. Anyway, thanks
for the continued excellent content and wishing you all folks
(05:16):
down there a happy holiday season. Cheers Robin Well. First
of all, thank you so much, Robin. A great message,
and I love that you brought this up. So I
got interested looking at this artwork. And I have two
takes on this one, I guess, one sort of thoughtful
and one kind of internet brained. The more thoughtful take
is yes, I totally know what you mean about the
(05:37):
way that ancient art can send shivers through your body.
Rob I assume you have a similar experience as well,
and I agree with you, Robin, that it is something
about that sudden connection between minds that are so distant
in time and space, like your mind and the artist's
mind across thousands of years. It's easy to feel, by
(05:59):
virtue of this encounter with someone's art, that you know
them in some intimate way, maybe better than people who
have actually met them know them, because art is a window,
you know, it's a window in kind of deep parts
of people's mind and character. Often people express things through
art works that maybe they aren't comfortable sharing in conversation.
(06:20):
You know, it's commonly thought of that art is in
some way an expression of the personality of the artists.
So like by seeing the works that people create, you
know something very familiar and close and maybe commonly hidden
about them. And yet because of the distance in time
and the anonymity of the artist in this case, we
don't know who made this lion of statue. Not only
(06:43):
can you never meet this artist, there's just so much
about their life and context you cannot know and will
never know. How different their life was from yours, how
differently they saw the world and everything like that. And
I think it's that tension between the intimate mental connection
established by viewing a piece of art and the objective
(07:03):
ignorance we have the total mystery about the life of
the artist that makes ancient art so haunting, at least
to me.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Absolutely, yeah, I agree with all that. And by the way,
the book that was referenced, Art of the First Cities,
this was a two thousand and three publication from the
Metropolitan Museum of Art. Looks like you can still pick
up copies of it. Yeah, it looks like a handsome volume.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Oh nice. Yeah, I'm gonna have to go back and
check out that link after we record this. But anyway,
there are just so many questions that spring to mind.
I don't know, It's like you want to know more
about the mindset of the artist when you can't. For example,
so this is a lion human hybrid. But I always
wonder in these cases were of these ancient artworks, is
(07:47):
it best thought of as anthropomorphic, meaning a lion taking
a human form, or theiomorphic? Is it a human taking
a lion form? And you can't necessarily tell by the picture,
but you can make guess is like, what does it
mean when it's a lion's head on a human body
as opposed to like a human head on a lion's body.
Does one imply more anthropomorphism versus theeomorphism than the other?
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Yeah? Yeah, I mean you can just look at our
own modern dreams of half human half animal hybrids and
they can ultimately convey a whole host of different ideas,
and certainly that would have been the case in the
ancient past as.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Well as For my internet brained take on this, I'm sorry,
but a comparison did come to mind. I was looking
at this leonine human being that is just so jacked
with muscles, and it made me think about those comic
book superhero illustrations that get turned into memes because the
muscles are comically gigantic. I'm thinking particularly of an image
I've seen many times on the internet of like Captain America,
(08:52):
where he looks just like a truck.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Yeah, you included that one here, this in our outline,
and this is the infamous big chested Rob Leifeld Captain America.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
And I'm not trying to hate, by the way, I
don't know anything about this artist. I'm just say it's
a funny image.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
A lot of people have fun with lifel illustrations. I mean,
he was and is a very influential figure in comics,
particularly Marvel, but some of his designs are maimed a
lot because of their anatomical ridiculousness, even within the world
of comic book superheroes. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
On the other hand, I think there are multiple ways
you can kind of read the pose of this lion
human with the hands clasped together like that, Like is
that a muscle flexing pose or kind of a you know,
we were thinking of it as like an exercise bodybuilding pose,
but you could also read that as the hands clasp
of contemplation. You know. I don't know if it had
(09:48):
the same association in the ancient Mesopotamian culture that produced this,
but we often think of clasped hands as prayer or
meditation or contemplation, thoughtfulness, wisdom. That could be what's going
on here.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Yeah, it's hard to say exactly. It's hard. It's hard
to read this image. I mean it's easier to read
the Captain America. I think he's he's being in all tough. Uh,
that's that's just basically the read I'm getting here tough
and a little little mean. Ye, but yeah, it's hard
to read the lioness.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
But anyway, thank you again, Robin. Oh should we do
this other message from Robin about festive holiday cocktails?
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Yeah? Absolutely, Yeah, this one came in separately, and this
one was was sent to us as well as to
Tracy and Holly over at stuff you missed in history class,
and this is how it goes down. Hi, Holly and
Rob and Tracy and Joe. Please forgive the slightly odd
co mingling of stuff personnel, But from listening to both
(10:44):
of your podcasts, stuff you missed a history class and
stuff to blow your mind, I think the two of
you are most relevant to the question I have. If
I may calling out Holly in particular because she has
a cocktail book out. That book is Killer Cocktails, Dangerous
Drinks in Spired by History's most Nefarious Criminals. It's out now.
You can get it in all sorts of formats.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Oh wonderful. Shout out to our crossover listeners, by the way.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Yeah, anyway, Robin continues, it seems that both of you
are fans of a tasty cocktail. I would love to
make some tasty holiday cocktails for family and friends in
the next few weeks, and I am looking for fun
ideas and inspiration. Do the two of you either A
have an outlet where you if use specifically about tasty
drinks in your experience. I know about your exciting book, Hollie.
(11:30):
I am waiting until after Christmas in case someone already
wrapped it up for me or B have favorite or
a favorites that you go to websites, blogs, social media,
et cetera for cocktail inspiration. Thank you ever so much
for any info in this area. Much appreciated. Happy mixing. Well, Yes,
Rob and I do enjoy a cocktail, be it one
(11:50):
that is infused with a spirit or one that is
alcohol free. I love a great many zero proof cocktails
these days as well. Big fanatropical drinks, so often turned
to the pages of Jeff Beach Bumberry as well as
his Total Tiki app on top of his published books.
You know, so it's a great These are great places
(12:12):
to find cool, historic tiki drinks to try out. I
also love to look through the pages of Imbibe Magazine
and their website imbibemagazine dot com for ideas. In fact,
one of the holiday drinks I've been making regularly each
year for a few years now is one called nutty
like a fruitcake. That's a lot of fun. So you
(12:35):
can find that at Imbibe magazine. I will, however, stress
that this is one of those drinks that every year
I make it, it feels a little stronger and a
little sweeter. And I know that I'm not changing the
way I make it, but I think the makeup of
myself is changing each year. It just feels sweeter and
stronger to my sensibilities. So if you do make this
(12:56):
drink and it's a great Christmas, you know, holiday Day,
New Year's drink, and so forth, I would say, don't
be a hero. Consider cutting it with soda water. It's
still a great drink if you do it that way. Yeah,
I support that. Certainly, over time the body craves less
alcohol and sugar, I would say, but yeah, yeah, you know,
(13:18):
on the subject of cutting drinks or not being a hero,
I think this came up recently on a Weird House
Cinema episode.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
I don't remember if we may have cut it. I
don't know if we left it in or not, But anyway,
I want to stand up for the non dry martini.
You know, whenever people order a martini in a movie,
if they specify anything about it, they always say dry
one very dry martini, meaning you know, higher content of
your whatever, your your hard spirit is in your gin
or your vodka. So I recommend if you're making yourself
(13:46):
a martini for New Year's try try a wetter, gentler martini.
I think it's a nice experience. I think a gin
based martini is better. And go less on the gin,
heavier on the vermouth, and try it with some olive brine.
It's it's nice.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Yeah, And I do want to stress too for folks
out there who don't drink alcohol or considering stopping or
you know, considering doing a dry january, as a lot
of folks do these days. I mean, there's never been
a better time in my opinion, to go that route.
Like we have so many wonderful zero proof spirits, zero
proof ingredients, cocktail recipes to go off of. Yeah, you
(14:24):
can still have a grand time and get you know,
so much out of the cocktail experience these days.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Totally agree. There there are even some like canned, pre
made non alcoholic cocktails you can buy now that we've
tried recently that are really good.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So if any of you out there
have particular favorites you'd like to share, write in. We'd
love to hear from you.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
All right. This next message is from Elliott and it
concerns our episodes on Sacred Trees, specifically the second episode
we did on that where I talked about sacred trees
struck by lightning and Rob you talked about the meaning
of the Rowan Tree. Elliott says. Greetings, longtime listener, first
time writer here. Primarily thank you for your service with
(15:15):
the podcast. It's an educational joy and a wonderful wellspring
of inspiration. Thank you so much, Elliott. Elliott says, as
a small token of appreciation for the Rowan Tree episode,
I wanted to share some seeds. Specifically, I know the
Rowan tree is used by Ursula k Legwin in her
Earthsea series. The first chapter of book three, The Farthest Shore,
(15:38):
is called the Rowan Tree. The specific Rowan tree in
question is one which stands adjacent to a fountain in
the courtyard in the Magical School of Roke, the inspiration
for Hogwarts. This scene is actually a callback to book
one titled A Wizard of Earth see when the young
protagonist first arrives at the school and meets the arch
Mage an inspiration for Dumbledore. Since Ursula le Gwin's father
(16:01):
was an anthropologist working with Indigenous Americans, documented by her
mother in the book Ishi in Two Worlds, Young Ursula
grew up surrounded by inherently anthropological questions such as what
does this tree mean to this culture? The magic system
in the Earth Sea universe is also fascinating to view
through this lens. An episode on the on magic systems
(16:22):
in general could be fun. Thanks again for your great work, Elliott, Well,
thank you Elliott. A couple of thoughts. First of all, yes,
I love Ursula Legwin. I haven't read the Earthsea series yet.
This email has made me think maybe that should be
my next fiction read. Been meaning to for years. I
think there is a cool sensibility about cultures in her work,
(16:45):
that the way she depicts invented alien cultures and her
sci fi novels. I haven't read any of her fantasy work,
but excited about Earthsea. It feels very sensitive and lived in,
with a kind of heterogeneity visible within the general trends
as opposed to the stories that depict alien cultures or
(17:06):
invented culture is in a very flat or symbolic way
where it's just like everyone does this, you know. And also,
if you would like to learn more about the story
of the man known as Ishi mentioned in this email,
the person who's in the title of the Theodor Krober
book Eshi in Two Worlds. We discussed him in our
series on Brain Theft from twenty twenty one, so you
(17:27):
can go back and listen to that if you want
to hear about Hi.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
All right, let's see. Oh, we do have a number
of messages related to the Hearth. I believe that's a
there's a Hearth related title for today's listener mail episode.
So let's get into some of these. This first one
comes to us from Mike, subject line x Men ninety
seven Fireplace. We were talking about various fireplace for your
(17:53):
home DVDs, streaming options and so forth. So Mike says,
to add to the collection, Marvel has posted an X
Men animated series Fireplace on YouTube.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
You know, Mike included a link and I tried to
go check this out, but by the time I checked it,
it was after Christmas and the video was gone, so
it may have been just a before Christmas thing and
then taken down. I don't know, or maybe it's still
out there somewhere. But I did find a screenshot and
I pulled that in and put it in our outline,
so here you can see rob what the X Men
fireplace looked like. I appreciate that this is more like
(18:32):
a hand drawn animation style.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Yes, yeah, very much in the style of X Men
ninety seven, which is an amazing series. By the way,
it hits really hard. I think it's must viewing for
anyone who grew up with the nineties X Men cartoon.
But I think I haven't tested this out yet, but
I think you could also watch X Men ninety seven
without having watched the original X Men series. I watched
(18:54):
it with my kid and it was a lot of fun,
and we've been talking about, well should we get mom
in on the action as well? And I think there's
I think you can get into it. That's my theory.
I think you can watch X Men ninety seven with
only just like a casual understanding of Marvel's X Men.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Trying to see who's got stockings. The stockings have names
on them here. Oh yeah, we have a stocking for Wolverine, Storm, Rogue,
Gene Jeene Gray.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
And then who this says morph in Morph? Yeah, morph
is a shape shifting mutants. Yes, I don't know if
I knew morph Morph was in the in the original series. Okay,
and has a I think a more prominent role in
this one. Cool.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Well, as I've said before on the show, I'm underfamiliar
with the X Men cartoons, both old and new. I
haven't seen this new one, and I didn't ever watch
much of the old one, so I don't know as
much as I would like to, But I don't know.
It looks fun, I like the visual style. I'd like
to check it out.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Yeah, yeah, it's solid. Let's see what else? Oh? And
then this is the This is also from Mike, Right,
Mike sent something that sent over something that aw wrestler dead.
It's a video of one hangman Adam Page sipping whiskey
in front of a burning house that's serving as a
yule log. I didn't I personally don't follow wrestling as
much these days, so I don't know what the context
(20:12):
is for this. But still, anything within in the virtual
Christmas Hearth domain, I'm all for it. Oh, and this
just springs to mind as well. I didn't think to
mention this earlier, but when we were talking about like
spinoffs of virtual hearts, digital hearths and fireplaces and indeed
(20:32):
yule Logs Adult Swims yule Log from twenty twenty two,
it's like a horror movie that begins as a yule
Log video feed and then it evolves into a horror movie.
Oh yeah, my pal nick A Katanawat did the original
score for it. This is the same bunch that also
did Too Many Cooks a few years I think a
(20:54):
couple of years before that.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
So similar vein so like fireplace for your home in
the style of Too Many Cooks. Exactly, Yes, perfect, that's
what I want.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
In speaking of what we want, I was also thinking.
We talked a little bit about this when we discussed
the movie Blue Sunshine and Weird House Cinema, which has
a very notable horrific hearth sequence in it. These are
some of my ideas. These are movies that we need
digital hearth feeds. For Blue Sunshine, of course, The wicker
Man obviously not quite a hearth, but fire Fellowship of
(21:29):
the Ring seems just a no brainer. We need one
of the Roaring Hop a hearth with the one ring
in there, you know, staying nice and cool and shining,
and maybe we can glimpse the script in the interior
of the ring. I think that would be a good one.
And then finally, Citizen Kane. It's been a while since
(21:50):
I've seen Citizen Kane, but I'm reminded that Citizen Kane
had a phenomenal fireplace. It seems like that would be
a great inclusion as well.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
I gotta say my entry is the Vincent Price House
of Wax, whereas our burning House of Wax. Though, that
would be kind of hard to loop, I think because
as the wax figmurines melt, maybe they could melt and
then it could go in reverse and they reconstitute and
it just.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
Got coving forth forever. It sounds fun. Who Likewise, this
would be hard to loop. But melting Nazis from the
end of Raiders of the Last Star. Ah, Yes, that
could also potentially work.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
Melting Nazis for your home Yeah yes.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Oh. A couple of quick messages from the Discord server
in regards to hearth videos and so forth, One Gorpi
writes in with the following back in two thousand and eight,
Stephen Colbert made a holiday special and one of the
extras on the DVD was a yule log that but
a random book would occasionally be thrown into it. I
remember Fahrenheit four fifty one was one of the first
(22:49):
books thrown into the yule log. Nice and then oh
and then we also heard from Matt on Discord. Matt
writes loving the hearth episode so far. If I growing
up in the Burbs, we had a functional woodstove fireplace
in the living room, so between that and being a
boy scout as a kid, I have a strong nostalgia
for fireplaces and campfires. The apartment I lived in had
(23:11):
a faux fireplace mantle with a rotating fire effect and
a built in space heater. Something I noticed over the
years was that even if the heater part wasn't on,
my face would flush after sitting in front of the
fire effect for a while, as though it was a
real fire and not just a rotating stencil and red light.
And Netflix certainly wasn't the first. I've got this gym
(23:32):
from two thousand and five, and I'm sure there were
plenty before it. Matt includes a photograph of a DVD
here holiday fire a virtual fireplace.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Oh man, I bet like Kmart could not keep these
on the shelves in two thousand and six.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Yeah, I have to admit there many times where I'll
go up to I will be at a friend's house
who has a faux fireplace of some kind, and I
will still warm my hands by it. I just can't.
Just like you see it, you do it, and even
when you feel no heat coming off of it, the
ritual of the of the situation is still feels potent. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Interesting that the thing Matt saying about the physiological reaction,
the flushing without the heat.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
You know, it kind of comes back to what we
were talking about earlier about zero proof cocktails. I've had
sit situations before where I've had a zero proof cocktail
and you know, you kind I kind of feel like
a little flushed, a little, a little like psychosomatic imbibing
of like purely mental alcohol. In those situations.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Like just the the belief that you're having a cocktail
provides some amount of social disinhibition, even if there's no
actual alcohol in it.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Yeah, because there's so much, of course, with with any
of these things where there's the actual stimuli there's the
actual you know, chemical and biological processes that are involved.
But then there's some there's ritual, there's there's additional sensory
data it's not tied to the heat or to the
alcohol and so forth, and all of that has an
(25:07):
effect on the mind as well. There have probably been studies,
maybe there even been studies about people warming themselves by
a fake firelight. I don't know all right.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
This next message comes from Joe, a subject line on illumination.
Dear Rob and Joe, thank you for your illuminating had
to swing at that slow pitch over the plate sorry
podcast on hearths. I wanted to write in with some
cultural commentary on your observations on the nature of firelight
(25:40):
and how we take pervasive electric illumination for granted. I
connected this conversation with an upcoming ritual in which I
partake annually, Honkkah. My favorite thing about Honkkah is the
sacred practice of turning off all the other lights while
the candles burn. The light of the honakiah or manora,
both words are correct is intended to be the only
(26:03):
light in the area for the time when the candles burn.
It can be an extraordinary gift of peace in a
time of year which is usually filled with joy, that
brings with it a sizable share of chaos, noise, and
of course bright electric light. I am a secular jew,
so for me, this holiday isn't about a divine connection.
But I find the ten or fifteen minutes of darkness,
(26:24):
but for the flickering, fading, waning light as the candles
in my manora dwindle, strengthen my relationship to my ancestors
whose nights were lit by this ephemeral source. It's not
a portal to another world, but for me, firelight does
open a passageway of sorts through time and creates a
connection to a history I choose to treasure. Joe, Well,
(26:44):
thank you, Joe. Yeah, that's very interesting, and it does
expand on some themes we talked about in the second
of our Hearth episodes when we were talking about the
study of how time lit by firelight is used differently
than time lit by daylight or by electric light. And
in one particular case of people studied living in Southern Africa,
(27:08):
time that was lit exclusively by firelight was used overwhelmingly
for storytelling, as opposed to other types of conversation which
dominated during daylight hours. And that's kind of an interesting observation.
Don't know how universally true that holds, but it seems
that other sources have documented that it is common for
people who have environments lit entirely by firelight to dwell
(27:31):
in a kind of storytelling space, or in a space
that puts everyday experiences in the context of a kind
of bigger picture and a history and a world and
a realm of meaning, as opposed to just the day
to day tactics of getting by that consume most of
our energy. And so I thought that that was really interesting,
(27:51):
and I wonder to what extent there was a kind
of economic explanation in the paper we talked about, which
is that firelight is enough light to stay awake and
interact with other people, to like talk and sing and
dance and have social time. But the quality of the
light produced by a fire is typically not good enough
to see what you're doing, well enough to get most
(28:14):
kinds of work done, you know. So it's like it
produces a time you can be awake and do things,
but you can't really be very economically productive. And that
could be viewed in some ways as a kind of
blessing because it allows you to engage in these other
types of activities. And so we were thinking, is it
only that kind of mechanical explanation where it's like, well,
you can't really see good enough to do most types
(28:36):
of economic work with the firelight, or is it also
that there are things about the esthetic qualities of firelight
that just put you in a different frame of mind
that also lend themselves to these sort of storytelling meaning
orientations and thinking more about the big picture and thinking
more about other worlds and dreams. I guess I'm not
(28:58):
fully prepared to have this conversation day, but maybe it's
something to come back to in the future. Like, if
it is the case that firelight puts you in a
particularly imaginative or expansive state of mind compared to daylight
or bright electric light, why is that? What is it
about the firelight environment that that makes you think differently?
(29:20):
Is it something about the color of the light, or
the relative amount of darkness surrounding you or what. I
don't know exactly, but I think they'll be interesting to consider.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Yeah, fluctuations shadows. I wonder if lava lamps get into
a similar area, like, you know, yeah, we'll probably you know,
you're not doing a lot of like serious study by
by Lava Lamp. You're you're you're doing other things. Yeah,
you're you're you're dreaming, you know. All right, This next
one comes to us from Anna. Anna writes, and it says, Hi,
(29:54):
Robin Joe, you talk about the TV show of a Fireplace.
Reminds me of something that came out a few years
ago here in Australia. It was just one long train
journey and it ran all day long. There's a famous
train in Australia called the Gone that runs through the
center of Australia. I had to look this up and yeah,
it goes right through the middle from the northern coast
(30:16):
to the southern coast. It looks pretty incredible. The show,
Anna continues, was mostly shots from the front of the
train moving along the track, interspersed with other external shots
of the train moving along. Because the train goes through
the center of Australia, the landscape is mostly desert. There
was no soundtrack, just the soothing clackety clack of the train.
(30:36):
It was quite popular at the time. The fact that
there wasn't much going on was what made it appealing
because people found it soothing. I live in Sydney now,
so I don't encounter fireplaces a lot, but I grew
up in Tasmania, where they were a part of life
in winter. Obviously, here in Australia, winter is at the
opposite time of the year, so I don't associate them
with Christmas, but I do associate them with family gatherings. Anyway,
(31:00):
thanks for the great podcast.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Yeah, well thanks Anna. Well, yeah, I agree that that's
an interesting comparison. So when we were talking about Slow
TV and the Hearth episodes, we talked about obviously, you know,
the mule log fireplace for your home, all of these
fire burning movies, but we also talked about Andy Warhol's Empire,
which is just a shot of the Empire State Building
filmed over the course of one night as as the
(31:21):
sky grows dark and the floodlights come on at the
top of the building, and not much happens. You just
look at the building for I don't know, six hours
or eight hours. How I think it's like eight hours
the full length of the movie when played at the
frame rate that's intended. And so that's one way of
doing it. The train thing is on a similar theme,
though it does seem kind of different because there you
(31:43):
are going from one place to another. Though I still
think it'd be hard to call that much of a
plot by conventional standards, but there's something more literally of
a journey about it.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
I should go ahead and to add a real time
self correction here. I think I said gone. I think
GAN would be more accurate because this was formerly the
Afghan Express and it was abbreviated to GAN. But yeah,
this does sound like a very interesting program in its
own right. I'm reminded now of I believe this was
a twenty sixteen project from the band Cigaroes. They did
(32:19):
some sort of project where they had like a camera
mounted on the top of a vehicle and they were
just driving around Iceland and then of course with their
signature sound on top of that. But I remember when
that came out. I remember a lot of us were
very intrigued by it, and I think you can still
pull it up on their website, and maybe that just
linked to some other places you can watch it, but anyway,
(32:41):
it's still out there if you want to ride around
Iceland with cigarettes.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Well, thanks again, Anna, Okay, let's see Rob do you
mind if I do this message about our vault episodes
on the shadow, please do. This comes from ls. LS says, hey,
I thought your episodes on shadows were quite intriguing. I
(33:08):
was particularly curious about the role shadows play in characters
or religious figures, such as Chaia and that, by the way,
is a Hindu deity that is a personification of the
shadow or of shade. LS continues. The stories you featured
in these episodes had characters with their shadows being stolen
or in some cases a separate entity. This got me
(33:30):
thinking about characters that have shadows as an integral part
of their being, especially in ways that reflect some sort
of inner evil or buried personality. An example that comes
to mind is Vex from League of Legends parentheses. I know, well, LS,
maybe you know, but I don't know. I don't know
(33:50):
what I've heard of League of Legends, but I don't
know anything about it. This implies to me that there
must be I don't know something notorious about it.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
I mean, I don't know much of Legal Legends, but
the TV series Arcane, the animated series, is quite good
and I'm not very far into it, but people really
love it and I've been impressed by it so far.
So yeah, I mean it seems like a rich world,
but I don't know anything about the original video.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
Kain Arkane is a show based on legal legends.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Correct.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
Oh okay, yeah, so Ls continues about this character Vex.
This character features abilities revolving around her sentient shadow, one
that is a source of power, a thing that she
can separate from and manipulate. Another, maybe more prominent exhibit
is the departed shadow of the Marvel character Centry. This
(34:40):
thing is called the Void and is somewhat its own character.
In the Doctor Strange trade paperback The God of Magic
parentheses Kate slash Walta, the Void is imprisoned in the
Wizard's Sanctum, a being that mirrors the strength of Century,
but returns the century's good deeds into equal of darkness.
(35:01):
These characters come to mind because they have different behaviors
than the shadows featured in the episodes. I thought that
the idea of the shadow being the reflection of someone's
inner evil, like a personification of intrusive thoughts or source
of power, was a topic that wasn't reached due to
time constraints, but felt that this kind of interpretation of
shadow was something that you might find curious. There are
(35:24):
certainly many more instances of this, but I may have
spent too much time on this anyways, LS well, thank you. Ells. Yeah,
I guess we didn't get into it in the episode.
For example, I know the shadow. I don't know a
ton about this, but I know the shadow in I
almost called it Jungian psychology. I try not to say
(35:44):
Jungian psychology these days because I feel like that gives
Jungianism too much of the implication that it's based on
like direct scientific research in Jungian thought. Uh, there's this
idea of the shadow that is basically the the subconscious,
repressed version of the ego or of the self. And
(36:05):
so it's like the version of you that is maybe
the version that that you don't want people to see,
that would maybe do bad things that you know you
shouldn't do, or in some other way would would violate
your your externally validated ethos. You know, it's the the
version of you that could be let loose if you
just cut off all of your inhibitions.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
The the mister hide to your doctor Jekyl exactly, yes,
and so yeah, you can have kind of interesting thoughts
about the ways that your conscious self interacts with the
you know, with your your repressed desires and the things
that you know you shouldn't do, and so forth.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
Those kind of interactions between the conscious self and the
and the shadow self, I don't know, maybe kind of
blend in interesting ways that that come out in our behaviors.
But then again, I don't want to I don't want
to overstate or give the impression that that I think
Youngian thought is like a sign scientifically validated way of
understanding humanity. It's more just kind of like an interesting
(37:05):
philosophical framework on the human mind.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
All right, Well, on that note, should should we turn
to a little weird house cinema limail to round out
the episode? Absolutely the Void to Our Century?
Speaker 3 (37:19):
If you will, Let's see you want to do this
one from Nathan and Olivia or this one from Joan?
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Oh? I mean, whether they're both great? Your choice.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
Let's see, I'll take Nathan and Olivia, then you take Joan.
How about that sounds good? Okay? So this is from
an account called Nathan and Olivia, though the email uses
the first person singular pronoun, so it seems like this
is from either Nathan or Olivia in superposition for the
time being. Subject line Dead Mountaineers Hotel Hi Robert, Joe
(37:53):
and JJ just finished the Weird House episode on the
Dead Mountaineers Hotel. I was especially excited for this one
as the Strugatsky's have been cited by the developers of
the video game disco Elysium as a core inspiration to
the game, and then they add if you search Arcadi,
Arcadi and Boris Strugatsky disco Elysium Steam, you should find
(38:16):
a list of inspirations the developers made on a Steam
page for the game. Disco Elysium is my favorite game
of all time. You play as an amnesiac detective trying
to solve a murder and get his life together or
not in the fictional city of Revashl. It is a
callback to classic CRPGs like Planescape Torment and regarded as
(38:38):
one of the best written video games of all time.
The lead writer for the game was Robert Kurwitz, who
is Estonian. Oh yeah, was Dead Mountaineer's Hotel Estonian? I
know it was one of the Baltic states where it
was made. Yes, Rob just confirmed it was Estonian. Anyway,
The email goes on. I really enjoyed the episode on
the Dead Mountaineers Hotel. The influence on Disco Elysia is
(39:00):
easy to see. If you were ever to decide to
do a weird house episode on a video game, Disco
would be a great candidate. It's relatively short, and the
choices are endless and isn't traditionally difficult as there is
no combat. It sounds great to me.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
You had me at it's relatively short.
Speaker 3 (39:18):
Yeah, good writing and short. That's my kind of game
these days. Take care and thanks for a great show,
Nathan and Olivia. So yeah, thank you for getting in touch,
either Nathan or Olivia or both of you whoever wrote this.
That I've heard great things about the game, I actually well,
actually I'm understanding. I did downloaded it and I started
(39:40):
playing it one day, but I didn't actually like get
into the you know as one of those threshold I
played like five minutes. So I just need to like
start over someday.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Yeah, yeah, I've I've been tempted to pick it up
as well because I've always heard great things, and as
of this recording, there's like a massive sale on it
on the on the console that I use in their
web store, so I like, I have it bookmarked, and
I've been trying to decide It's like, is seventy percent off?
Is this the threshold at which I buy this game?
(40:10):
And then what will it take for me to actually
play it? I just play fewer games these days, but yeah,
I've only heard great things and a Planescape Torment that
was one that I loved so much back in the day.
That is an amazing game Dungeons and Dragons game set
in the Planescape setting, which is also one of my favorites. Yeah,
(40:31):
loads of fun. So if it's anything like that, that's
that's a great sign. All right, One more weird house message. Yes,
this one comes to us from Joan Jones, says, I
just enjoyed listening to your discussion of Return to Oz. Yes,
so we recently re ran this as a Weird House
(40:54):
Cinema rewind episode, and I think I managed to more
or less hit the debut of the new Wicked movie
without really intending too. It's like ended up being like, oh,
that was a great I patted myself on the back
for it, but it was kind of by accident. I
wasn't even thinking about it. But obviously Wicked has been
a huge hit. Everyone I know who has seen it
(41:15):
loved it. The rest of my family really loved it,
but I haven't seen it just yet. Anyway, Jones says, Oh, boys,
your grandma's minds were being blown by those characters before
you were a twinkle in your daddy's eyes. What you
view as mind blowing is all from the original Oz
books by bomb You owe it to yourself to read them.
Bomb Can the original illustrator, and the new illustrations are wonderful.
(41:39):
They have a fantastic art deco vibe. Ozma of Oz
is Dorothy's best friend, not her alter ego. She's the
rightful ruler of Oz, but was hidden for most of
her life when momby transformed her into the least likely
creature imaginable, a little boy named Tip. When Tip gets
transformed into a beautiful fairy princess, he's initially not too
happy about it. Totally can talk, but he just doesn't
(42:01):
feel like it. Auntie m and Uncle Henry eventually joined
Dorothy and Oz. Oh lots of twists and turns there. Yeah.
As a little girl, my personal favorite was a magic
turnstyle that would dress you in a new outfit. Every
time you went through it. I just realized turnstyle may
have been a pun for turn style. My friends and
I hated Glinda's hairstyle and loved polychrome The Fairy of
(42:26):
the Rainbow. Wow. Somebody once pointed out that Oz is
a distinctly American fairy tale. In Alice in Wonderland, for example,
all the characters are self centered creeps who work against Alice.
In Oz, Dorothy succeeds by making friends. Check out the
books sometime, Joan, Oh.
Speaker 3 (42:43):
Yeah, I didn't really. I guess I didn't really think
about that. But in both of the Oz stories I
know from the movies, not from the books, Dorothy is
is a friend maker, even in a very strange lend.
She picks up friendships wherever she goes.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
Yeah, that's a great point.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
Ye.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
Every time the Wizard of Oz has come up, we
often hear from folks who have read the books who
point out just how deep and weird it all is.
I have to I've never I have never read any
of it, but I enjoy these little little tidbits about
the deep weirdness.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Of OZ totally. All Right, Does that do it for today?
Speaker 2 (43:17):
I believe it does. We'll go ahead and close out
this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind listener Mail,
but we'll be back with more in the future, so
keep the listener mails coming. We read everything that comes in.
It doesn't necessarily make it to a listener mail episode,
but a lot of it does. Likewise, you can leave
your thoughts and the discord server. You can write into
us via email and we'll send you the link for that.
(43:40):
We're also there are some some other places. There's a
there's a Stuff to Blow your Mind Facebook group called
the Discussion Module. You can look that up and ask
to join that if if you prefer to use the Facebook.
Speaking of social if you're on Instagram where STBYM podcast,
follow us there. It's one way to keep up with
what we're putting out these days. On letter We're Weird
(44:00):
House and you can follow the Weird House cinema selections there.
And yeah, those are the main plugs I can think of.
What do you got, Joe?
Speaker 3 (44:09):
Just our email once again. Oh but first, huge thanks
as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. If
you want to get in touch by email and you
missed the address earlier in the episode, once again, it
is contact at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
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.
My name is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
And I am Joe McCormick. And hey, we're coming at
you with new stuff after roughly a week or so off.
Do we say this was a listener mail episode? I
think you did. But if we didn't, here, yeah, here
we are with listener mail for you. Hey, if you
are a listener of Stuff to Blow your Mind and
you have never gotten in touch before, this is a
great time to try it. You can email us at
contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Messages
(00:37):
of all sorts are welcome. We especially appreciate feedback to
any episodes, recent or older episodes, if you want, if
you've got thoughts to add, something interesting, to build on
anything we brought up in the episode, of course, if
you ever have corrections if necessary, If you have just
something interesting you want to share with us, we got
some messages of that sort here today, Or if you
(00:58):
just want to tell us what you like about the
show where you listen from that kind of thing. All
all sorts of messages are welcome. Contact at Stuff to
Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
You can also ask to join the Discord server by
emailing us to that address.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
All right, Rob, if you don't mind, I think we
should kick things off today with actually a couple of
messages from our listener Robin, one about ancient art and
another one about festive holiday cocktails. We're sort of we're
past the point for one season of holiday cocktails, but
just in time for another. All right, I'll start with
the one about art. So this is from Robin. Robin says, Hey, Rob,
(01:40):
Joe and JJ just a quick email with some cool
stuff I came across, maybe fodder for future topics. Sometimes
the almighty cursed algorithm actually digs up something worthwhile, and
I got served up an image of an ancient sculpture
from early history with a quick line of description. Intrigued,
I dug a bit more into the Gwynall line. Gwinnall,
(02:01):
if you're trying to look this up, is spelled gue nnol.
That's a Welsh word apparently meaning Martin. And just for
a bit of description, The Gwynall Lioness is a roughly
five thousand year old limestone statuette. It's a little over
eight centimeters tall and it shows a lion human hybrid form.
(02:23):
It's posed in a very interesting way. So we see
it from the thighs up to the head. The lower
parts of the legs I don't know if they ever existed.
If they did, they're no longer attached to the rest
of the statuette. But we see from the thighs up
and so it's a lion human form with sort of
the upright torso of a human body, but with a
(02:44):
lion's head. No Maine, just a manless lion. And also,
I don't know, the hands to me look like they're
supposed to be maybe lion claws, but this could be interpreted.
I guess it's just fingers. But it's a very unusual
interesting pose. First of all, the figure is extremely muscular,
and second of all, it's got its fists or claws
(03:05):
like pushed together with its elbows bent up. I don't
know what you would call this arm posture, but it's
like just raise your arms up and push your fists
together in front of your chest. And it's also sort
of rotating at the torso, so it looks like it's
doing some kind of exercise. I don't know if this
is like a pilates move.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yeah, this looks a lot like the bodybuilding pose that
is called the most muscular, except in the most muscular
like the fists are not like touching, they're like crisscrossing.
You've all seen this one if you've seen any amount
of bodybuilding, just clips you know, you know Arnold Schwarzenegger
back in the day, that sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
So, this statuette was allegedly found near modern day bagh Dad.
I don't know if it's known exactly when it was found,
but the trading history of it and collections seems to
begin in the early nineteen thirties, so it seemed it
was found somewhere around Baghdad before that time, in the
early nineteen thirties and held for a while in the
private collection of a guy who was I guess a
(04:09):
major tennis player named Alistair Bradley Martin who was also
an art collector. But it's been on display at some museums,
I believe the Brooklyn Museum in New York and so forth.
But anyway, I'm going to continue with Robin's message here
about this statuette. Robin says, holy mackinaw, what a fascinating
and gorgeous piece of art, but even better in the
(04:30):
Wikipedia article on this artwork, the first link in the
further reading tab is a book called Art of the
First Cities the third millennium BC, from the Mediterranean to
the Indus, edited by Joan ruse at All. That book
is downloadable as a PDF from the link provided there.
And wow, is that ever a treasure of incredible art
from the distant past. I love seeing the connections, similarities
(04:54):
and the different takes on common subjects of art and
expression by different people in the past. Early artwork gives
me the shivers in the best way. I find a
real connection can be forged with the artist, and to
think about who they were and when they were living, well,
it really blows my mind. As they say. Anyway, thanks
for the continued excellent content and wishing you all folks
(05:16):
down there a happy holiday season. Cheers Robin Well. First
of all, thank you so much, Robin. A great message,
and I love that you brought this up. So I
got interested looking at this artwork. And I have two
takes on this one, I guess, one sort of thoughtful
and one kind of internet brained. The more thoughtful take
is yes, I totally know what you mean about the
(05:37):
way that ancient art can send shivers through your body.
Rob I assume you have a similar experience as well,
and I agree with you, Robin, that it is something
about that sudden connection between minds that are so distant
in time and space, like your mind and the artist's
mind across thousands of years. It's easy to feel, by
(05:59):
virtue of this encounter with someone's art, that you know
them in some intimate way, maybe better than people who
have actually met them know them, because art is a window,
you know, it's a window in kind of deep parts
of people's mind and character. Often people express things through
art works that maybe they aren't comfortable sharing in conversation.
(06:20):
You know, it's commonly thought of that art is in
some way an expression of the personality of the artists.
So like by seeing the works that people create, you
know something very familiar and close and maybe commonly hidden
about them. And yet because of the distance in time
and the anonymity of the artist in this case, we
don't know who made this lion of statue. Not only
(06:43):
can you never meet this artist, there's just so much
about their life and context you cannot know and will
never know. How different their life was from yours, how
differently they saw the world and everything like that. And
I think it's that tension between the intimate mental connection
established by viewing a piece of art and the objective
(07:03):
ignorance we have the total mystery about the life of
the artist that makes ancient art so haunting, at least
to me.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Absolutely, yeah, I agree with all that. And by the way,
the book that was referenced, Art of the First Cities,
this was a two thousand and three publication from the
Metropolitan Museum of Art. Looks like you can still pick
up copies of it. Yeah, it looks like a handsome volume.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Oh nice. Yeah, I'm gonna have to go back and
check out that link after we record this. But anyway,
there are just so many questions that spring to mind.
I don't know, It's like you want to know more
about the mindset of the artist when you can't. For example,
so this is a lion human hybrid. But I always
wonder in these cases were of these ancient artworks, is
(07:47):
it best thought of as anthropomorphic, meaning a lion taking
a human form, or theiomorphic? Is it a human taking
a lion form? And you can't necessarily tell by the picture,
but you can make guess is like, what does it
mean when it's a lion's head on a human body
as opposed to like a human head on a lion's body.
Does one imply more anthropomorphism versus theeomorphism than the other?
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Yeah? Yeah, I mean you can just look at our
own modern dreams of half human half animal hybrids and
they can ultimately convey a whole host of different ideas,
and certainly that would have been the case in the
ancient past as.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Well as For my internet brained take on this, I'm sorry,
but a comparison did come to mind. I was looking
at this leonine human being that is just so jacked
with muscles, and it made me think about those comic
book superhero illustrations that get turned into memes because the
muscles are comically gigantic. I'm thinking particularly of an image
I've seen many times on the internet of like Captain America,
(08:52):
where he looks just like a truck.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Yeah, you included that one here, this in our outline,
and this is the infamous big chested Rob Leifeld Captain America.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
And I'm not trying to hate, by the way, I
don't know anything about this artist. I'm just say it's
a funny image.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
A lot of people have fun with lifel illustrations. I mean,
he was and is a very influential figure in comics,
particularly Marvel, but some of his designs are maimed a
lot because of their anatomical ridiculousness, even within the world
of comic book superheroes. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
On the other hand, I think there are multiple ways
you can kind of read the pose of this lion
human with the hands clasped together like that, Like is
that a muscle flexing pose or kind of a you know,
we were thinking of it as like an exercise bodybuilding pose,
but you could also read that as the hands clasp
of contemplation. You know. I don't know if it had
(09:48):
the same association in the ancient Mesopotamian culture that produced this,
but we often think of clasped hands as prayer or
meditation or contemplation, thoughtfulness, wisdom. That could be what's going
on here.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Yeah, it's hard to say exactly. It's hard. It's hard
to read this image. I mean it's easier to read
the Captain America. I think he's he's being in all tough. Uh,
that's that's just basically the read I'm getting here tough
and a little little mean. Ye, but yeah, it's hard
to read the lioness.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
But anyway, thank you again, Robin. Oh should we do
this other message from Robin about festive holiday cocktails?
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Yeah? Absolutely, Yeah, this one came in separately, and this
one was was sent to us as well as to
Tracy and Holly over at stuff you missed in history class,
and this is how it goes down. Hi, Holly and
Rob and Tracy and Joe. Please forgive the slightly odd
co mingling of stuff personnel, But from listening to both
(10:44):
of your podcasts, stuff you missed a history class and
stuff to blow your mind, I think the two of
you are most relevant to the question I have. If
I may calling out Holly in particular because she has
a cocktail book out. That book is Killer Cocktails, Dangerous
Drinks in Spired by History's most Nefarious Criminals. It's out now.
You can get it in all sorts of formats.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Oh wonderful. Shout out to our crossover listeners, by the way.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Yeah, anyway, Robin continues, it seems that both of you
are fans of a tasty cocktail. I would love to
make some tasty holiday cocktails for family and friends in
the next few weeks, and I am looking for fun
ideas and inspiration. Do the two of you either A
have an outlet where you if use specifically about tasty
drinks in your experience. I know about your exciting book, Hollie.
(11:30):
I am waiting until after Christmas in case someone already
wrapped it up for me or B have favorite or
a favorites that you go to websites, blogs, social media,
et cetera for cocktail inspiration. Thank you ever so much
for any info in this area. Much appreciated. Happy mixing. Well, Yes,
Rob and I do enjoy a cocktail, be it one
(11:50):
that is infused with a spirit or one that is
alcohol free. I love a great many zero proof cocktails
these days as well. Big fanatropical drinks, so often turned
to the pages of Jeff Beach Bumberry as well as
his Total Tiki app on top of his published books.
You know, so it's a great These are great places
(12:12):
to find cool, historic tiki drinks to try out. I
also love to look through the pages of Imbibe Magazine
and their website imbibemagazine dot com for ideas. In fact,
one of the holiday drinks I've been making regularly each
year for a few years now is one called nutty
like a fruitcake. That's a lot of fun. So you
(12:35):
can find that at Imbibe magazine. I will, however, stress
that this is one of those drinks that every year
I make it, it feels a little stronger and a
little sweeter. And I know that I'm not changing the
way I make it, but I think the makeup of
myself is changing each year. It just feels sweeter and
stronger to my sensibilities. So if you do make this
(12:56):
drink and it's a great Christmas, you know, holiday Day,
New Year's drink, and so forth, I would say, don't
be a hero. Consider cutting it with soda water. It's
still a great drink if you do it that way. Yeah,
I support that. Certainly, over time the body craves less
alcohol and sugar, I would say, but yeah, yeah, you know,
(13:18):
on the subject of cutting drinks or not being a hero,
I think this came up recently on a Weird House
Cinema episode.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
I don't remember if we may have cut it. I
don't know if we left it in or not, But anyway,
I want to stand up for the non dry martini.
You know, whenever people order a martini in a movie,
if they specify anything about it, they always say dry
one very dry martini, meaning you know, higher content of
your whatever, your your hard spirit is in your gin
or your vodka. So I recommend if you're making yourself
(13:46):
a martini for New Year's try try a wetter, gentler martini.
I think it's a nice experience. I think a gin
based martini is better. And go less on the gin,
heavier on the vermouth, and try it with some olive brine.
It's it's nice.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Yeah, And I do want to stress too for folks
out there who don't drink alcohol or considering stopping or
you know, considering doing a dry january, as a lot
of folks do these days. I mean, there's never been
a better time in my opinion, to go that route.
Like we have so many wonderful zero proof spirits, zero
proof ingredients, cocktail recipes to go off of. Yeah, you
(14:24):
can still have a grand time and get you know,
so much out of the cocktail experience these days.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Totally agree. There there are even some like canned, pre
made non alcoholic cocktails you can buy now that we've
tried recently that are really good.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So if any of you out there
have particular favorites you'd like to share, write in. We'd
love to hear from you.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
All right. This next message is from Elliott and it
concerns our episodes on Sacred Trees, specifically the second episode
we did on that where I talked about sacred trees
struck by lightning and Rob you talked about the meaning
of the Rowan Tree. Elliott says. Greetings, longtime listener, first
time writer here. Primarily thank you for your service with
(15:15):
the podcast. It's an educational joy and a wonderful wellspring
of inspiration. Thank you so much, Elliott. Elliott says, as
a small token of appreciation for the Rowan Tree episode,
I wanted to share some seeds. Specifically, I know the
Rowan tree is used by Ursula k Legwin in her
Earthsea series. The first chapter of book three, The Farthest Shore,
(15:38):
is called the Rowan Tree. The specific Rowan tree in
question is one which stands adjacent to a fountain in
the courtyard in the Magical School of Roke, the inspiration
for Hogwarts. This scene is actually a callback to book
one titled A Wizard of Earth see when the young
protagonist first arrives at the school and meets the arch
Mage an inspiration for Dumbledore. Since Ursula le Gwin's father
(16:01):
was an anthropologist working with Indigenous Americans, documented by her
mother in the book Ishi in Two Worlds, Young Ursula
grew up surrounded by inherently anthropological questions such as what
does this tree mean to this culture? The magic system
in the Earth Sea universe is also fascinating to view
through this lens. An episode on the on magic systems
(16:22):
in general could be fun. Thanks again for your great work, Elliott, Well,
thank you Elliott. A couple of thoughts. First of all, yes,
I love Ursula Legwin. I haven't read the Earthsea series yet.
This email has made me think maybe that should be
my next fiction read. Been meaning to for years. I
think there is a cool sensibility about cultures in her work,
(16:45):
that the way she depicts invented alien cultures and her
sci fi novels. I haven't read any of her fantasy work,
but excited about Earthsea. It feels very sensitive and lived in,
with a kind of heterogeneity visible within the general trends
as opposed to the stories that depict alien cultures or
(17:06):
invented culture is in a very flat or symbolic way
where it's just like everyone does this, you know. And also,
if you would like to learn more about the story
of the man known as Ishi mentioned in this email,
the person who's in the title of the Theodor Krober
book Eshi in Two Worlds. We discussed him in our
series on Brain Theft from twenty twenty one, so you
(17:27):
can go back and listen to that if you want
to hear about Hi.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
All right, let's see. Oh, we do have a number
of messages related to the Hearth. I believe that's a
there's a Hearth related title for today's listener mail episode.
So let's get into some of these. This first one
comes to us from Mike, subject line x Men ninety
seven Fireplace. We were talking about various fireplace for your
(17:53):
home DVDs, streaming options and so forth. So Mike says,
to add to the collection, Marvel has posted an X
Men animated series Fireplace on YouTube.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
You know, Mike included a link and I tried to
go check this out, but by the time I checked it,
it was after Christmas and the video was gone, so
it may have been just a before Christmas thing and
then taken down. I don't know, or maybe it's still
out there somewhere. But I did find a screenshot and
I pulled that in and put it in our outline,
so here you can see rob what the X Men
fireplace looked like. I appreciate that this is more like
(18:32):
a hand drawn animation style.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Yes, yeah, very much in the style of X Men
ninety seven, which is an amazing series. By the way,
it hits really hard. I think it's must viewing for
anyone who grew up with the nineties X Men cartoon.
But I think I haven't tested this out yet, but
I think you could also watch X Men ninety seven
without having watched the original X Men series. I watched
(18:54):
it with my kid and it was a lot of fun,
and we've been talking about, well should we get mom
in on the action as well? And I think there's
I think you can get into it. That's my theory.
I think you can watch X Men ninety seven with
only just like a casual understanding of Marvel's X Men.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Trying to see who's got stockings. The stockings have names
on them here. Oh yeah, we have a stocking for Wolverine, Storm, Rogue,
Gene Jeene Gray.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
And then who this says morph in Morph? Yeah, morph
is a shape shifting mutants. Yes, I don't know if
I knew morph Morph was in the in the original series. Okay,
and has a I think a more prominent role in
this one. Cool.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Well, as I've said before on the show, I'm underfamiliar
with the X Men cartoons, both old and new. I
haven't seen this new one, and I didn't ever watch
much of the old one, so I don't know as
much as I would like to, But I don't know.
It looks fun, I like the visual style. I'd like
to check it out.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Yeah, yeah, it's solid. Let's see what else? Oh? And
then this is the This is also from Mike, Right,
Mike sent something that sent over something that aw wrestler dead.
It's a video of one hangman Adam Page sipping whiskey
in front of a burning house that's serving as a
yule log. I didn't I personally don't follow wrestling as
much these days, so I don't know what the context
(20:12):
is for this. But still, anything within in the virtual
Christmas Hearth domain, I'm all for it. Oh, and this
just springs to mind as well. I didn't think to
mention this earlier, but when we were talking about like
spinoffs of virtual hearts, digital hearths and fireplaces and indeed
(20:32):
yule Logs Adult Swims yule Log from twenty twenty two,
it's like a horror movie that begins as a yule
Log video feed and then it evolves into a horror movie.
Oh yeah, my pal nick A Katanawat did the original
score for it. This is the same bunch that also
did Too Many Cooks a few years I think a
(20:54):
couple of years before that.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
So similar vein so like fireplace for your home in
the style of Too Many Cooks. Exactly, Yes, perfect, that's
what I want.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
In speaking of what we want, I was also thinking.
We talked a little bit about this when we discussed
the movie Blue Sunshine and Weird House Cinema, which has
a very notable horrific hearth sequence in it. These are
some of my ideas. These are movies that we need
digital hearth feeds. For Blue Sunshine, of course, The wicker
Man obviously not quite a hearth, but fire Fellowship of
(21:29):
the Ring seems just a no brainer. We need one
of the Roaring Hop a hearth with the one ring
in there, you know, staying nice and cool and shining,
and maybe we can glimpse the script in the interior
of the ring. I think that would be a good one.
And then finally, Citizen Kane. It's been a while since
(21:50):
I've seen Citizen Kane, but I'm reminded that Citizen Kane
had a phenomenal fireplace. It seems like that would be
a great inclusion as well.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
I gotta say my entry is the Vincent Price House
of Wax, whereas our burning House of Wax. Though, that
would be kind of hard to loop, I think because
as the wax figmurines melt, maybe they could melt and
then it could go in reverse and they reconstitute and
it just.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
Got coving forth forever. It sounds fun. Who Likewise, this
would be hard to loop. But melting Nazis from the
end of Raiders of the Last Star. Ah, Yes, that
could also potentially work.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
Melting Nazis for your home Yeah yes.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Oh. A couple of quick messages from the Discord server
in regards to hearth videos and so forth, One Gorpi
writes in with the following back in two thousand and eight,
Stephen Colbert made a holiday special and one of the
extras on the DVD was a yule log that but
a random book would occasionally be thrown into it. I
remember Fahrenheit four fifty one was one of the first
(22:49):
books thrown into the yule log. Nice and then oh
and then we also heard from Matt on Discord. Matt
writes loving the hearth episode so far. If I growing
up in the Burbs, we had a functional woodstove fireplace
in the living room, so between that and being a
boy scout as a kid, I have a strong nostalgia
for fireplaces and campfires. The apartment I lived in had
(23:11):
a faux fireplace mantle with a rotating fire effect and
a built in space heater. Something I noticed over the
years was that even if the heater part wasn't on,
my face would flush after sitting in front of the
fire effect for a while, as though it was a
real fire and not just a rotating stencil and red light.
And Netflix certainly wasn't the first. I've got this gym
(23:32):
from two thousand and five, and I'm sure there were
plenty before it. Matt includes a photograph of a DVD
here holiday fire a virtual fireplace.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Oh man, I bet like Kmart could not keep these
on the shelves in two thousand and six.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Yeah, I have to admit there many times where I'll
go up to I will be at a friend's house
who has a faux fireplace of some kind, and I
will still warm my hands by it. I just can't.
Just like you see it, you do it, and even
when you feel no heat coming off of it, the
ritual of the of the situation is still feels potent. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Interesting that the thing Matt saying about the physiological reaction,
the flushing without the heat.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
You know, it kind of comes back to what we
were talking about earlier about zero proof cocktails. I've had
sit situations before where I've had a zero proof cocktail
and you know, you kind I kind of feel like
a little flushed, a little, a little like psychosomatic imbibing
of like purely mental alcohol. In those situations.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Like just the the belief that you're having a cocktail
provides some amount of social disinhibition, even if there's no
actual alcohol in it.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Yeah, because there's so much, of course, with with any
of these things where there's the actual stimuli there's the
actual you know, chemical and biological processes that are involved.
But then there's some there's ritual, there's there's additional sensory
data it's not tied to the heat or to the
alcohol and so forth, and all of that has an
(25:07):
effect on the mind as well. There have probably been studies,
maybe there even been studies about people warming themselves by
a fake firelight. I don't know all right.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
This next message comes from Joe, a subject line on illumination.
Dear Rob and Joe, thank you for your illuminating had
to swing at that slow pitch over the plate sorry
podcast on hearths. I wanted to write in with some
cultural commentary on your observations on the nature of firelight
(25:40):
and how we take pervasive electric illumination for granted. I
connected this conversation with an upcoming ritual in which I
partake annually, Honkkah. My favorite thing about Honkkah is the
sacred practice of turning off all the other lights while
the candles burn. The light of the honakiah or manora,
both words are correct is intended to be the only
(26:03):
light in the area for the time when the candles burn.
It can be an extraordinary gift of peace in a
time of year which is usually filled with joy, that
brings with it a sizable share of chaos, noise, and
of course bright electric light. I am a secular jew,
so for me, this holiday isn't about a divine connection.
But I find the ten or fifteen minutes of darkness,
(26:24):
but for the flickering, fading, waning light as the candles
in my manora dwindle, strengthen my relationship to my ancestors
whose nights were lit by this ephemeral source. It's not
a portal to another world, but for me, firelight does
open a passageway of sorts through time and creates a
connection to a history I choose to treasure. Joe, Well,
(26:44):
thank you, Joe. Yeah, that's very interesting, and it does
expand on some themes we talked about in the second
of our Hearth episodes when we were talking about the
study of how time lit by firelight is used differently
than time lit by daylight or by electric light. And
in one particular case of people studied living in Southern Africa,
(27:08):
time that was lit exclusively by firelight was used overwhelmingly
for storytelling, as opposed to other types of conversation which
dominated during daylight hours. And that's kind of an interesting observation.
Don't know how universally true that holds, but it seems
that other sources have documented that it is common for
people who have environments lit entirely by firelight to dwell
(27:31):
in a kind of storytelling space, or in a space
that puts everyday experiences in the context of a kind
of bigger picture and a history and a world and
a realm of meaning, as opposed to just the day
to day tactics of getting by that consume most of
our energy. And so I thought that that was really interesting,
(27:51):
and I wonder to what extent there was a kind
of economic explanation in the paper we talked about, which
is that firelight is enough light to stay awake and
interact with other people, to like talk and sing and
dance and have social time. But the quality of the
light produced by a fire is typically not good enough
to see what you're doing, well enough to get most
(28:14):
kinds of work done, you know. So it's like it
produces a time you can be awake and do things,
but you can't really be very economically productive. And that
could be viewed in some ways as a kind of
blessing because it allows you to engage in these other
types of activities. And so we were thinking, is it
only that kind of mechanical explanation where it's like, well,
you can't really see good enough to do most types
(28:36):
of economic work with the firelight, or is it also
that there are things about the esthetic qualities of firelight
that just put you in a different frame of mind
that also lend themselves to these sort of storytelling meaning
orientations and thinking more about the big picture and thinking
more about other worlds and dreams. I guess I'm not
(28:58):
fully prepared to have this conversation day, but maybe it's
something to come back to in the future. Like, if
it is the case that firelight puts you in a
particularly imaginative or expansive state of mind compared to daylight
or bright electric light, why is that? What is it
about the firelight environment that that makes you think differently?
(29:20):
Is it something about the color of the light, or
the relative amount of darkness surrounding you or what. I
don't know exactly, but I think they'll be interesting to consider.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Yeah, fluctuations shadows. I wonder if lava lamps get into
a similar area, like, you know, yeah, we'll probably you know,
you're not doing a lot of like serious study by
by Lava Lamp. You're you're you're doing other things. Yeah,
you're you're you're dreaming, you know. All right, This next
one comes to us from Anna. Anna writes, and it says, Hi,
(29:54):
Robin Joe, you talk about the TV show of a Fireplace.
Reminds me of something that came out a few years
ago here in Australia. It was just one long train
journey and it ran all day long. There's a famous
train in Australia called the Gone that runs through the
center of Australia. I had to look this up and yeah,
it goes right through the middle from the northern coast
(30:16):
to the southern coast. It looks pretty incredible. The show,
Anna continues, was mostly shots from the front of the
train moving along the track, interspersed with other external shots
of the train moving along. Because the train goes through
the center of Australia, the landscape is mostly desert. There
was no soundtrack, just the soothing clackety clack of the train.
(30:36):
It was quite popular at the time. The fact that
there wasn't much going on was what made it appealing
because people found it soothing. I live in Sydney now,
so I don't encounter fireplaces a lot, but I grew
up in Tasmania, where they were a part of life
in winter. Obviously, here in Australia, winter is at the
opposite time of the year, so I don't associate them
with Christmas, but I do associate them with family gatherings. Anyway,
(31:00):
thanks for the great podcast.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Yeah, well thanks Anna. Well, yeah, I agree that that's
an interesting comparison. So when we were talking about Slow
TV and the Hearth episodes, we talked about obviously, you know,
the mule log fireplace for your home, all of these
fire burning movies, but we also talked about Andy Warhol's Empire,
which is just a shot of the Empire State Building
filmed over the course of one night as as the
(31:21):
sky grows dark and the floodlights come on at the
top of the building, and not much happens. You just
look at the building for I don't know, six hours
or eight hours. How I think it's like eight hours
the full length of the movie when played at the
frame rate that's intended. And so that's one way of
doing it. The train thing is on a similar theme,
though it does seem kind of different because there you
(31:43):
are going from one place to another. Though I still
think it'd be hard to call that much of a
plot by conventional standards, but there's something more literally of
a journey about it.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
I should go ahead and to add a real time
self correction here. I think I said gone. I think
GAN would be more accurate because this was formerly the
Afghan Express and it was abbreviated to GAN. But yeah,
this does sound like a very interesting program in its
own right. I'm reminded now of I believe this was
a twenty sixteen project from the band Cigaroes. They did
(32:19):
some sort of project where they had like a camera
mounted on the top of a vehicle and they were
just driving around Iceland and then of course with their
signature sound on top of that. But I remember when
that came out. I remember a lot of us were
very intrigued by it, and I think you can still
pull it up on their website, and maybe that just
linked to some other places you can watch it, but anyway,
(32:41):
it's still out there if you want to ride around
Iceland with cigarettes.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Well, thanks again, Anna, Okay, let's see Rob do you
mind if I do this message about our vault episodes
on the shadow, please do. This comes from ls. LS says, hey,
I thought your episodes on shadows were quite intriguing. I
(33:08):
was particularly curious about the role shadows play in characters
or religious figures, such as Chaia and that, by the way,
is a Hindu deity that is a personification of the
shadow or of shade. LS continues. The stories you featured
in these episodes had characters with their shadows being stolen
or in some cases a separate entity. This got me
(33:30):
thinking about characters that have shadows as an integral part
of their being, especially in ways that reflect some sort
of inner evil or buried personality. An example that comes
to mind is Vex from League of Legends parentheses. I know, well, LS,
maybe you know, but I don't know. I don't know
(33:50):
what I've heard of League of Legends, but I don't
know anything about it. This implies to me that there
must be I don't know something notorious about it.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
I mean, I don't know much of Legal Legends, but
the TV series Arcane, the animated series, is quite good
and I'm not very far into it, but people really
love it and I've been impressed by it so far.
So yeah, I mean it seems like a rich world,
but I don't know anything about the original video.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
Kain Arkane is a show based on legal legends.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Correct.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
Oh okay, yeah, so Ls continues about this character Vex.
This character features abilities revolving around her sentient shadow, one
that is a source of power, a thing that she
can separate from and manipulate. Another, maybe more prominent exhibit
is the departed shadow of the Marvel character Centry. This
(34:40):
thing is called the Void and is somewhat its own character.
In the Doctor Strange trade paperback The God of Magic
parentheses Kate slash Walta, the Void is imprisoned in the
Wizard's Sanctum, a being that mirrors the strength of Century,
but returns the century's good deeds into equal of darkness.
(35:01):
These characters come to mind because they have different behaviors
than the shadows featured in the episodes. I thought that
the idea of the shadow being the reflection of someone's
inner evil, like a personification of intrusive thoughts or source
of power, was a topic that wasn't reached due to
time constraints, but felt that this kind of interpretation of
shadow was something that you might find curious. There are
(35:24):
certainly many more instances of this, but I may have
spent too much time on this anyways, LS well, thank you. Ells. Yeah,
I guess we didn't get into it in the episode.
For example, I know the shadow. I don't know a
ton about this, but I know the shadow in I
almost called it Jungian psychology. I try not to say
(35:44):
Jungian psychology these days because I feel like that gives
Jungianism too much of the implication that it's based on
like direct scientific research in Jungian thought. Uh, there's this
idea of the shadow that is basically the the subconscious,
repressed version of the ego or of the self. And
(36:05):
so it's like the version of you that is maybe
the version that that you don't want people to see,
that would maybe do bad things that you know you
shouldn't do, or in some other way would would violate
your your externally validated ethos. You know, it's the the
version of you that could be let loose if you
just cut off all of your inhibitions.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
The the mister hide to your doctor Jekyl exactly, yes,
and so yeah, you can have kind of interesting thoughts
about the ways that your conscious self interacts with the
you know, with your your repressed desires and the things
that you know you shouldn't do, and so forth.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
Those kind of interactions between the conscious self and the
and the shadow self, I don't know, maybe kind of
blend in interesting ways that that come out in our behaviors.
But then again, I don't want to I don't want
to overstate or give the impression that that I think
Youngian thought is like a sign scientifically validated way of
understanding humanity. It's more just kind of like an interesting
(37:05):
philosophical framework on the human mind.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
All right, Well, on that note, should should we turn
to a little weird house cinema limail to round out
the episode? Absolutely the Void to Our Century?
Speaker 3 (37:19):
If you will, Let's see you want to do this
one from Nathan and Olivia or this one from Joan?
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Oh? I mean, whether they're both great? Your choice.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
Let's see, I'll take Nathan and Olivia, then you take Joan.
How about that sounds good? Okay? So this is from
an account called Nathan and Olivia, though the email uses
the first person singular pronoun, so it seems like this
is from either Nathan or Olivia in superposition for the
time being. Subject line Dead Mountaineers Hotel Hi Robert, Joe
(37:53):
and JJ just finished the Weird House episode on the
Dead Mountaineers Hotel. I was especially excited for this one
as the Strugatsky's have been cited by the developers of
the video game disco Elysium as a core inspiration to
the game, and then they add if you search Arcadi,
Arcadi and Boris Strugatsky disco Elysium Steam, you should find
(38:16):
a list of inspirations the developers made on a Steam
page for the game. Disco Elysium is my favorite game
of all time. You play as an amnesiac detective trying
to solve a murder and get his life together or
not in the fictional city of Revashl. It is a
callback to classic CRPGs like Planescape Torment and regarded as
(38:38):
one of the best written video games of all time.
The lead writer for the game was Robert Kurwitz, who
is Estonian. Oh yeah, was Dead Mountaineer's Hotel Estonian? I
know it was one of the Baltic states where it
was made. Yes, Rob just confirmed it was Estonian. Anyway,
The email goes on. I really enjoyed the episode on
the Dead Mountaineers Hotel. The influence on Disco Elysia is
(39:00):
easy to see. If you were ever to decide to
do a weird house episode on a video game, Disco
would be a great candidate. It's relatively short, and the
choices are endless and isn't traditionally difficult as there is
no combat. It sounds great to me.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
You had me at it's relatively short.
Speaker 3 (39:18):
Yeah, good writing and short. That's my kind of game
these days. Take care and thanks for a great show,
Nathan and Olivia. So yeah, thank you for getting in touch,
either Nathan or Olivia or both of you whoever wrote this.
That I've heard great things about the game, I actually well,
actually I'm understanding. I did downloaded it and I started
(39:40):
playing it one day, but I didn't actually like get
into the you know as one of those threshold I
played like five minutes. So I just need to like
start over someday.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Yeah, yeah, I've I've been tempted to pick it up
as well because I've always heard great things, and as
of this recording, there's like a massive sale on it
on the on the console that I use in their
web store, so I like, I have it bookmarked, and
I've been trying to decide It's like, is seventy percent off?
Is this the threshold at which I buy this game?
(40:10):
And then what will it take for me to actually
play it? I just play fewer games these days, but yeah,
I've only heard great things and a Planescape Torment that
was one that I loved so much back in the day.
That is an amazing game Dungeons and Dragons game set
in the Planescape setting, which is also one of my favorites. Yeah,
(40:31):
loads of fun. So if it's anything like that, that's
that's a great sign. All right, One more weird house message. Yes,
this one comes to us from Joan Jones, says, I
just enjoyed listening to your discussion of Return to Oz. Yes,
so we recently re ran this as a Weird House
(40:54):
Cinema rewind episode, and I think I managed to more
or less hit the debut of the new Wicked movie
without really intending too. It's like ended up being like, oh,
that was a great I patted myself on the back
for it, but it was kind of by accident. I
wasn't even thinking about it. But obviously Wicked has been
a huge hit. Everyone I know who has seen it
(41:15):
loved it. The rest of my family really loved it,
but I haven't seen it just yet. Anyway, Jones says, Oh, boys,
your grandma's minds were being blown by those characters before
you were a twinkle in your daddy's eyes. What you
view as mind blowing is all from the original Oz
books by bomb You owe it to yourself to read them.
Bomb Can the original illustrator, and the new illustrations are wonderful.
(41:39):
They have a fantastic art deco vibe. Ozma of Oz
is Dorothy's best friend, not her alter ego. She's the
rightful ruler of Oz, but was hidden for most of
her life when momby transformed her into the least likely
creature imaginable, a little boy named Tip. When Tip gets
transformed into a beautiful fairy princess, he's initially not too
happy about it. Totally can talk, but he just doesn't
(42:01):
feel like it. Auntie m and Uncle Henry eventually joined
Dorothy and Oz. Oh lots of twists and turns there. Yeah.
As a little girl, my personal favorite was a magic
turnstyle that would dress you in a new outfit. Every
time you went through it. I just realized turnstyle may
have been a pun for turn style. My friends and
I hated Glinda's hairstyle and loved polychrome The Fairy of
(42:26):
the Rainbow. Wow. Somebody once pointed out that Oz is
a distinctly American fairy tale. In Alice in Wonderland, for example,
all the characters are self centered creeps who work against Alice.
In Oz, Dorothy succeeds by making friends. Check out the
books sometime, Joan, Oh.
Speaker 3 (42:43):
Yeah, I didn't really. I guess I didn't really think
about that. But in both of the Oz stories I
know from the movies, not from the books, Dorothy is
is a friend maker, even in a very strange lend.
She picks up friendships wherever she goes.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
Yeah, that's a great point.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
Ye.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
Every time the Wizard of Oz has come up, we
often hear from folks who have read the books who
point out just how deep and weird it all is.
I have to I've never I have never read any
of it, but I enjoy these little little tidbits about
the deep weirdness.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Of OZ totally. All Right, Does that do it for today?
Speaker 2 (43:17):
I believe it does. We'll go ahead and close out
this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind listener Mail,
but we'll be back with more in the future, so
keep the listener mails coming. We read everything that comes in.
It doesn't necessarily make it to a listener mail episode,
but a lot of it does. Likewise, you can leave
your thoughts and the discord server. You can write into
us via email and we'll send you the link for that.
(43:40):
We're also there are some some other places. There's a
there's a Stuff to Blow your Mind Facebook group called
the Discussion Module. You can look that up and ask
to join that if if you prefer to use the Facebook.
Speaking of social if you're on Instagram where STBYM podcast,
follow us there. It's one way to keep up with
what we're putting out these days. On letter We're Weird
(44:00):
House and you can follow the Weird House cinema selections there.
And yeah, those are the main plugs I can think of.
What do you got, Joe?
Speaker 3 (44:09):
Just our email once again. Oh but first, huge thanks
as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. If
you want to get in touch by email and you
missed the address earlier in the episode, once again, it
is contact at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
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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