Listener Mail: The Summer's Out of Reach

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

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

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

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

Speaker 3 (00:14):
And my name is Joe McCormick. And on listener Mail episodes,
we read back messages that come into the Stuff to
Blow your Mind email address. If you're a fan of
the show and you've never written in before, this is
a great time to try it. You can email us
at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
All types of messages are welcome. We especially appreciate if

(00:35):
you have something interesting to add to a topic we've
talked about, maybe from your own experience or expertise, but
also if you want to ask us a question, if
you want to suggest a topic for the future, if
you want to suggest a movie for Weird House Cinema,
whatever it is, send it our way contact at stuff
to Blow your Mind dot com.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
That's right, yeah, right in. We'd love to hear from you. No,
no message is to silly or too serious, you know,
just I guess the general rules apply that if you
if you want to be anonymous, give us a note
let us know. To that effect, you know, include information
about your pronouns if you like, and that's about it. Yeah,

(01:15):
we're always happy to hear from you. We also sometimes
read messages that are shared with us from our Discord server,
and if you would like to join that sort that server,
just email us and we'll shoot you the link and
we'll Yeah, that's basically how we do it. Now, we're
going to be talking about some listener mails that came
in regarding our dog Days and Death Stars series, in

(01:37):
which we talk about the dog days of Summer and
the the rise of serious and so forth. We talked
a fair amount in those episodes about the music of
Don Henley, particularly the Boys of Summer, and I've made
a few references to the Lena del Rey song Summertime Sadness,

(01:58):
and in difference this song, I didn't mention something that
has really stuck out to me subsequently in the lyrics
as I've re listened to this song and it is
a great song, and I think, you know, very emotionally
deep song. But there's this one little bit where she sings,
think I'll miss you forever like the stars, miss the
sun in the morning sky. Later is better than ever,

(02:21):
Even if you're gone. I'm gonna drive so stars missing
the Sun in the morning sky makes me think too
serious and maybe to mercury. But it certainly seems like
there might be a dash of dog star to the
lyrics here, don't you think.

Speaker 3 (02:35):
Yeah, so that suggests the halliakal rising of Sirius, like
we talked about in the episodes, which means that in
the on the eastern horizon, that is the time when
Sirius kind of overtakes the Sun, when it starts to
appear just before dawn, and you can actually see it
in the in the darkness just before the sun rise
because the Sun is not you know, it's not hidden

(02:56):
behind the Sun's glare. And as the year goes on,
serious will climb up higher and hire it will rise
earlier and earlier before the sun. So it's kind of
like the dog star is running away from the Sun
and the Sun is chasing it and falling behind during
that time.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
Yeah. Yeah, So I don't know one way or another
for sure on this, but I think there's a chance
that there is an intentional connection here, an intentional reference
to Sirius. And if it's not intentional, I don't know,
maybe it just sort of leads in through the you
know the long standing culture of our associations with these
celestial objects.

Speaker 3 (03:33):
Wait, I think I told you already, but I finally
looked up this song and listened to it because you've
been talking about it.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
It's great.

Speaker 3 (03:38):
I really like it. Yeah. I wasn't against the Lana
del Ray, but I just hadn't ever listened to much
of her. I knew that song Video Games from many
years ago, but that's the same album that this song
is on, and I thought it was really good.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, so solid track. Yeah, really good stuff.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
Yeah. Well, since we're talking about music, should we go
ahead to this message about favorite bands?

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Yes, yes, let's do this one. And I also went
ahead and shoehorned down a discord message on the same topic.

Speaker 3 (04:08):
So in previous Listener Mail episodes, we had been chatting
back and forth with listeners and with each other about
the new album released this year by Boards of Canada
called Inferno, which ROB listened to about five hundred times
before I got a chance to. But I finally listened
to it, and I think it's great to really like
it that I cannot get that track out of my

(04:29):
head about I Love You, I.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
Love the Lord, Oh Father and Son yes, that.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
Just drives in there. Anyway, the samples in that are something,
something is really sticky about them. But it's a great
album start to finish.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
I really like it.

Speaker 3 (04:45):
But anyway, we were talking about how, of course Boards
of Canada, Rob, that is one of your favorite musical acts.
I love them too. But in response to one of
these messages from listeners, I noted that I was kind
of surprise that so many listeners seem to know what
your favorite bands are, not that we never talk about
personal taste on the podcast. Obviously, we do, especially with movies,

(05:10):
you know, since we do weird House cinema, I think
awareness of our taste in movies is kind of more expected.
That doesn't surprise me, but I guess I never know
what to expect about what listeners, what y'all out there
will notice and remember about stuff in other domains. And anyway,
after this, Rob challenged listeners to write in if they

(05:32):
had any guesses about my favorite music, and we got
some take up on this too. So this is from Ian.
Actually was Ian one of the people who wrote in
about you liking Boards of Canada. I think so, I
think so, yes, Ian says, high gents, so guessing my

(05:52):
favorite bands, Ian says, my immediate thoughts are Electric Wizard
and masted On. However, I feel like and here he
says Rob's taste, but I think he meant to say
Joe's tasting, so yeah, he says, However, I feel like
Joe's taste varies widely, so other listeners will have to
round out the list with other genres. As Joe seems

(06:13):
knowledgeable about time based guitar effects like delay of reverb,
chorus flanging, phasing, et cetera. I suspect his listening goes
beyond hard rock shoegaze, maybe Doctor Teeth and the Electric Mayhem.
Bonus points for recognizing those musical pioneers, Oh, I recognize.
Keep up the great work, and I hope it hasn't

(06:33):
been too creepy. Realizing that listeners often absorb personal facts
about the two of you as well as podcast content.
We don't mean to and don't worry. Most of us
are well adjusted and just really enjoy your work. Welcome
to celebrity life, cheers, Ian. I think celebrity might be
going a little far, but thank you. Ian.

Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yeah, all right, and here's where I'm going to go
ahead and Chew in a quick discord message, so you
can respond to this one as well, Joe, this one
comes to us from Thorp. Will Thorqule says, just a
few thoughts on this week's listener mail episode favorite musician
or not. Joe mentions Rocky ericson often. Also Jack from

(07:13):
Mister Black Pedals would be a fan of Weird House
Cinema based on the content of his mailing list.

Speaker 3 (07:20):
So I looked at this up. I'm not familiar, but
mister Black Pedals is a boutique pedal maker, guitar pedals.
I think this may be picking up on another thing
I said off handedly in a previous episode, which is
one of my consumer weaknesses, is boutique guitar pedals. I
always seeing those things. I'm like, ooh, I want that.
Oh it's three hundred dollars.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
Guitar pedal advertisers, where are you? We're giving all stuff
away for free here please?

Speaker 3 (07:46):
Yeah? Can we run ads for Earthquaker devices or something?

Speaker 2 (07:49):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (07:49):
I would love that. But Ian I will say, yeah,
very good. Guesses. You are correct that I'm not only
a metal fan. I like stuff in basically every genre,
but within the metal zone. Electric Wizard absolutely, Bingo Mastadon.
I do love two, especially from the earlier days of
like Leviathan and Blood Mountain, so I like their more

(08:10):
recent stuff. Also, I would also add Boris one of
my favorite metal bands. I'm actually wearing one of their
shirts today. This is a Boris flood t shirt. And
I don't know if I really need to say this one.
In fact, I would have guessed this is what I
mentioned most often on the show. But Sabbath, of course.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
Ye.

Speaker 3 (08:28):
As for time based effects, yes, I do like a
lot of like verbed out psyde rock, you know, basically
everything that descends from the thirteenth floor elevators. That's definitely
my zone.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
Yeah. I was definitely assuming Sabbath would be a major
guest for folks, and I suppose it goes without saying
that since we're almost always talking to each other on
this show, our musical references probably pop off more if
we both like or at least half familiarity with a
particular band. But then again, I was thinking about this.
We're more likely, I think, to make casual, almost easter

(09:02):
egg like references to bands if we both know them
in the same way. There were always referencing old Simpsons
episodes or certain weird house cinema movies from the past
without clearly stating something like this reminds me of the
moment in Treehouse of Horror, for when you know, we'll
just sort of throw it in and it can just
be lost. I suppose it's also if we're making a

(09:26):
major point, a major connection, such as like the Don
Henley thing, then yeah, we're more likely to really reference
like this album, this artist, this is what I think.
But yeah, just like passing references to Sabbath or Electric
Wizard or even Boards of Canada, like some of those
can maybe be almost invisible if you're not looking for them.

Speaker 3 (09:47):
Just to let folks in on some of my thought
process in making this show, this is actually something I'm
constantly mentally balancing, and I'm never sure if we find
the right place to be here. It's balancing having a
natural conversation versus explaining things enough that people who are
not sort of in on the joke or know whatever, like,

(10:09):
can understand what you're talking about.

Speaker 2 (10:11):
Yeah, yeah, and I mean not just with musical and
film references of course, but also like getting into the
scientific concepts that we cover, or historical references like how
how much do you explain? And like how do we
how are we imagining the intended listener? And how should
we be imagining the intended listener? Has there been drift
over the years, Yeah, concerning this, you know, it's at one.

(10:36):
It's like I catch myself thinking about it and then
just saying, don't think about that, just do the podcast.

Speaker 3 (10:41):
Yeah, it's true, and I think I'm not consistent about it.
Like sometimes I just let the conversation flow and I
you know, references come out that are not fully explained
and we just let them go by, and that has
its own qualities, you know. I think that is more
listenable and more natural, but at the same time leaves
a lot of people wondering what you're talking about. So

(11:02):
I don't know, I don't know. I don't know how
to solve that. So we're just gonna, I guess, keep
going back and forth between them. But anyway, thank you, Ian,
and also thank you to Thorpwell your correct Rocky Erickson
of course one of my favorites, and I'm going to
check out mister black Pedals.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
All right, I believe we have some more music related
listener mails here and the ones we're about to get
into are going to more directly concern our episodes about
the Dog Days and Death Stars and a lot of
Doc Hanley talk.

Speaker 3 (11:36):
If we're gonna do this message from Scott, first, we
should probably mention that you already sort of retracted your
original comments recanted, yeah, be healed. But yeah, so I
don't know. I guess this will come up in the
in the email and then you can respond afterwards.

Speaker 2 (11:54):
So yeah, yeah, because I really did have the experience
with certainly Boys of Summer, but also to a limited
extent with Summertime Sadness, where these are songs that I enjoyed,
had only thought to varying degrees about the lyric, but
then lyrics. Then, since we were talking about them on
the show, I listened to both tracks kind of over
and over again, did a lot more thinking about them,

(12:16):
and then, especially with Boys of Summer, made connections to
things that were either coming up in the in the
episode content itself, or I was reading about the origins
of the song. So Scott says, Hi, Rob and Joe
really enjoyed your wide ranging three part series on serious

(12:37):
and our human associations with it. But I need to
correct you on one point about the Don Henley song
The Boys of Summer, you noted it's sad, nostalgic mood,
pining for the lost days of summer and lost youth.
Lost youth as especially depicted in the music video all
connecting with the dog Days of Summer and a Dylan
Thomas poem about lost youth. But one of you also

(12:59):
described the song as creepy in the narrator's pursuit of
an ex girlfriend who is now dating other boys and
his promise that he'll still be there for her once
she's done with them, and I'll know. This is particularly
the point that I kind of went back on where
I used to have this read on it. And then
the more I thought about it more I listened to it,
I kind of like moved past that. But still it's

(13:21):
I think it's safe to assume others might have that
interpretation anyway, he continues, while Henley noted in the Bill
Domain article from Louder which you reference, that the song
is intentionally ambiguous. I think there's a very clear alternate, alternative,
rather interpretation. You've overlooked that the Missing Lover is actually

(13:42):
a metaphor for Eagles fans who loved the music he
made with that group, whom he hopes he can win
back after he's no longer with the Boys, the other
members of the band who produce summer type songs.

Speaker 3 (13:58):
This is profound. You have shaken my understanding of the
boys of Summer. I did not have this in mind
at all, But I think you're really onto something here.

Speaker 2 (14:06):
Yeah. Yeah, I had never heard this or thought this either.
But this is a captivating hypothesis, he continues. There are
many clues to this in the lyrics. The you, the
narrator addresses, is listening to radio music. In the last verse,
he wonders if he should heed the voice inside his head,
saying that you shouldn't quote look back to those lost

(14:28):
years after seeing a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac, The
Grateful Dead being another California band whose members and followers
have grown up and are driving fancier cars, but perhaps
are pining for the old days when they were roughing
life with a more carefree attitude and fewer resources, bootlegging
tapes instead of watching their investment portfolio. But the clincher

(14:51):
is when he wonders if the nights he remembers really happened,
where he can quote, remember how you made me crazy crazy?
Remember how I made you scream? An obvious reference to
evening concerts where the Eagles sang, among other songs, one
of these nights with the lyrics, one of these crazy, crazy,

(15:11):
crazy nights, while of the crowds screamed with excitement.

Speaker 3 (15:15):
Scott, brilliant exegesis. I two thumbs up from me.

Speaker 2 (15:20):
Yeah, great connections here, Scott. It is a complex hypothesis,
so I think I'm gonna gonna maybe take it a
little with a grain of salt. But I mean I
love overthinking about musical lyrics and and you know, as
well as the plots to be films. So I embraced this.
This is this is wonderful.

Speaker 3 (15:47):
Okay, you want to hear another response to the Don
Henley bit.

Speaker 2 (15:51):
Yes, I'm excited for this one because this is exactly
an email that I hope we would receive.

Speaker 3 (15:56):
This is from Jeff. Subject line, don't take this as
an actual threat, a reference to the name of a song.
Subject line, Don Henley must die. Jeff says, good day,
esteemed cohorts. Since you guys singled it out, I have
to add that when the ataris made, a pretty faithful
cover of the Boys of Summer. They changed the line

(16:17):
from I saw a deadhead sticker on a Cadillac to
I saw a black flag sticker on a Cadillac. That song,
referring to the Ataris cover is like a Turduccan of nostalgia.
You can feel wistful about Henley noting the irony of
a deadhead now driving a Cadillac. The Ataris reflecting on
the classic eighties song from their youth and now remarking

(16:40):
on the irony of the sellout Cadillac driver yearning for
pre swol Henry Rollins and now seemingly impossibly. That cover
is twenty three years old, so adults are reminiscing about
the early two thousands pop punk of their youth. Wow.
So I looked up the music video for the Atari's cover,

(17:02):
and much like with the original Henley video, I mean
respect to them. It's a It's a solid cover in
that in that pop punk style I remember from when
I was in high school. But I have a critique
of the the mismatch between the themes and cinematography. Now
in the original Don Henley music video, I critiqued it
because I thought it didn't look hot enough that you know,

(17:23):
we were talking about the dog days of summer, and
the video is cool, but it is literally cool. It
looks like very like temperature wise cool and crisp, and
nobody's sweaty. Everybody's very dry this music video. I have
a critique, which is that there's no beach. They're singing
in this cool looking, breezy mountain meadow, Like where's all

(17:43):
the heat in these videos? People make like wet, sweaty
music videos. That was a whole thing in two thousand
and two, So I don't know, I'm kind of surprised,
Like I'm like, where's all the sweat?

Speaker 2 (17:55):
Yeah, I was familiar with this cover of of the song,
but I am struck by this reference to I pre
swoll Henry Rollins. I had no idea that he was
ever not Swoll, so that I mean I grew up.
My first associations with Henry Rollins are from like music
videos on MTV, where he was he was very much swow.

Speaker 3 (18:20):
I hesitate to comment because I don't know enough about
Black Flag and Henry Rollins, but my impression is that
the getting really beefy was like later in the like
Rollins Rollins band after Black Flag.

Speaker 2 (18:32):
Okay, that's where I come in.

Speaker 3 (18:33):
Yeah, okay, yeah, because I don't know did Black Flag
when he was even have music videos or I'm not
sure yea. Anyway, So to continue with Jeff's message, he
has more. Jeff says, also, I'm obligated to mention a
weird house alum because he was in the Super Mario

(18:54):
Brothers movie Mojo Nixon's banger Don Henley Must Die, which
I don't know if i'd heard before, but I looked up.
This is great, Jeff says, hilarious, problematic, super catchy chorus.
Apparently Henley took it pretty well and even performed the
song with him on stage once. Well, that makes me
feel better about it.

Speaker 2 (19:15):
Yeah, so this I was hoping someone would write in
about Don Henley Must Die, because even as we were
covering and talking about the Boys of Summer, I kept
earworming myself by remembering this Mojo Nixon song, which I
very much remember from from back in the day. It
is very catchy. It is problematic in that like he is,

(19:36):
even in jest, calling for the death of of this
this this person, this real live human being.

Speaker 3 (19:44):
Who have mentioned a lot of methods in the song.

Speaker 2 (19:47):
Yeah, there's a lot of methodology and reasons that it
must be done, and he points out that that Don
Henley took it and stride. Yeah, like the basically the
stories and I don't remember the way or the exact
win on this, but Don Henley at one point appeared
on stage with Mojo Nixon and they sang the song together.

(20:07):
So I would, I would argue, very cool, way cooler
than Don Henley had to be about the song, I
have to say, and certainly cooler about it than Glenn
Fry was. There's a there's that story about how like
Glenn Fry came up to Jeff Bridges at some function
and was given him grief about the opinion of the
Eagles expressed by Jeff Lebowski and the big Lebowski about

(20:32):
the Eagles sucking and yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (20:36):
Like he thought actors wrote their own lines.

Speaker 2 (20:38):
I don't know. Yeah, it's just like unnecessarily like harping
on Jeff Bridges for something his character said, or at
least that's the story. I mean, who knows the truth
of any of this, but I have seen the footage
Henley and Nixon did did perform this song together, and yeah,
pretty cool moment.

Speaker 3 (20:55):
Opening lyrics are He's a tortured artist. Used to be
in the Eagle. Now he whinds like a wounded be goal.
Oh and also the chorus does rhyme. One version of
the chorus does rhyme don Henley must die with don't
let him get back together with Glenn Fry.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
Yeah, and it's a very catchy song.

Speaker 3 (21:17):
Let's see. Do we want to do the Jeff caveats
the rest of his message that it's a digression. I
guess we can mention a few things. He just includes
a few of his favorite covers, rock covers, dinosaur juniors,
just like Heaven. I'm a big Dinosaur junior fan. I
like that cover he includes no effects is go your
Own Way. That's a cover of Fleetwood Mac. Obviously. Do

(21:40):
we want to do the weird house digression about tron Aries?

Speaker 2 (21:43):
We can? I think I'll just summarize to say that
that he had some thoughts about tron Aris and and
seemed on the whole entertained by it, and in what
he said is encourages me to watch it at some point.
I really love the Nine Inch Nails score s soundtrack
for this film. But that's just as deep as I
got into it. I have not seen it, but hey,

(22:04):
maybe i'll check it out. Now. You know, I enjoyed
the last Stron movie, So if I enjoyed that one,
surely I could find something to love in this one.
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (22:12):
Does he say on the whole he was entertained by it.
I'd say it mixed. He has a lot of critiques.

Speaker 2 (22:17):
I saw the glass half full on this one, okay.

Speaker 3 (22:22):
Anyway, He finishes by saying, thanks for bringing us all
the information we didn't know, we wanted to know, mostly
wanted to share the black Flag thing, Jeff, Thank you, Jeff.

Speaker 2 (22:32):
All right, let's move on to some more. This one
relates to our series on the Thing before the Beginning,
where we talked about mythologies and religions old and fairly recent,
their contemplation of what comes before the creation, what exists
before the creation or the emergence of the universe. And

(22:53):
this one comes to us, Yeah from Sally Sali says,
dear stuff to blow your mind. While I was watching
one of your programs on Netflix about the universe expanding
and collapsing, I was suddenly reminded of a childhood memory.
As a young child, my brother told me that one
day the universe would reach an equilibrium, and when that happened,

(23:15):
it would freeze into place, and all life would cease
to exist and never happen again. I went to my
room and cried at the thought of all life being
wiped out. My mother heard me and came into my
room and asked me why I was crying. I explained
that my brother told me, and I explained what my
brother told me and how sad I was at life ceasing.

(23:35):
She laughed and said, look at your room. I guarantee
equilibrium won't ever happen. Since then, I have taken solace
in doing my part at promoting the continuation of life.
While I have you, I wish to tell you both,
Robin Joe, I greatly appreciate your perfectly paired soothing voices, you, gentlemen,
are my favorite voices to go to sweep. To Lest
you not understand what a true compliment that is, you

(23:55):
need only reference your own program about rumination. When one's
mind is locked into an infinite cycle, one is grateful
for anything to break the cycle and bring peace to
a troubled mind. I could easily comment on each of
your programs, but I will simply say I find your
programs highly enjoyable, and I am thankful I found you
have a great day, Sally.

Speaker 3 (24:15):
Well, thank you so much for the kind word.

Speaker 2 (24:16):
Sally.

Speaker 3 (24:17):
I'm glad you're enjoying the show. And I like this
story about what your mom said. I think I'm reading
the implication right, is that your room was so messy
that we could just definitely conclude equilibrium would never occur
in the universe.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
The messiness of this room will stave off the heat
death of the universe. I love it.

Speaker 3 (24:35):
Yeah, And you know, I'd add that I think your
mom is making a good point, even if the so
what we sometimes call heat death or thermal equilibrium of
the universe is you know, most physicists I would say
is the most likely ultimate fate of the universe. Given
what we know today, the time it would take for
us to get there is not relevant to us at all.

(24:57):
Like the inheritors of human and civilization, even just a
million years from now, I think, will probably be so
different from us that we wouldn't even be able to
understand them or imagine what they're like. And that million
years is such a tiny fraction of the time until

(25:18):
the universe stops having usable energy that I think that's
supposed to be something like ten to one hundred ten
to the one hundredth power years from now. It's just
a ridiculous amount of time from now. So even if
that big freeze happens to matter and energy, it's not
going to happen to us. Whatever us exists then if
anything will be unimaginable to us now. So I would

(25:41):
agree with your mom's perspective that that's not really something
humans should be worried about because there's so much time
and possibility between now and then. Even though it is
technically finite, it is functionally infinite.

Speaker 2 (25:54):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, this is not what's going to
kill you. The quote warrants Yvonne, life will kill you, yeah,
and then you'll be dead. But the heat death of
the universe is not really something to worry about. But
these ideas can be concerning when your encounterment at a
young age. It reminds me of when I was young
and I was in church. This wasn't even in the
American South. This was up in Newfoundland, where the pastor

(26:16):
was given a sermon about how everyone was going to
have to fight in some ultimate apocalyptic battle between good
and evil, and you would have to fight on one
of the two sides. And I was like, and I
was upset when I went home because I was like,
I don't want to do that. That sounds awful, And
you know, my parents had to comfort me on the
fact that, yeah, don't worry about that. That's not really

(26:37):
something to worry about. It's going to be fine. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (26:39):
Well, thanks again, Sally. I really appreciate your message, and
maybe we should continue the theme of messages that have
something to do with the religious themes from the thing
before the beginning. This one also touches on our series
on HeLa Monsters and on some previous listener mail. So
this is going to be from Josh, and we should

(27:00):
note previous messages we've received from Josh. So Josh wrote
in in the past agreeing with and adding to our
discussion of the creation x materia interpretation of Genesis, the
idea that in the Genesis creation narrative in the Bible,
it's actually not saying God created the world from nothing.

(27:21):
It's probably best understood as saying there was a pre
existing universe and God sort of reordered and furnished it
with new things and new possibilities, and we were talking
about how this interpretation the creation x materia is favored
in the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter day Saints aka the Mormons. Josh, who is a

(27:44):
member of the church, wrote in and expressed appreciation that
we were accurate in our description of the LDS doctrines
and beliefs involved, added his own thoughts, and Josh wrote
back again concerning the part in the Heal a Monster
series where we talked about these old reports that you know,
there were these articles in Western newspapers from the eighteen eighties.

(28:07):
I think it was saying like, oh, yeah, Mormons collect
HeLa monsters, boil them, extract their oil, and use that
in their ceremonies. And after a significant amount of investigation,
I concluded that this is not true, This never actually happened.
I think this was just just libel against Mormons, written

(28:27):
by people who were pushing a kind of anti Mormon
agenda in these newspapers at the time.

Speaker 2 (28:32):
Yeah, the same sort of thing that we've seen throughout
human history, when one religious group writes about another with
an axta grind.

Speaker 3 (28:40):
Yeah, just making up stuff about them to make them
look bad, and so Josh wrote in about this as well.
Josh says, hi, again, I just finished part two of
the HeLa Monster series and thought i'd chime in again.
That was the first I've heard of the heel Monster
oil story. I was extremely entertained by the ladle that

(29:04):
was constructed like a spoon. God. I love that detail.
So yeah, one of these articles that really to me
had the ring of something somebody was just making up,
had this detail that they get the oil out of
the vats with a ladle, which is in construction much
like a spoon. Josh says, personally, I'd be more interested

(29:24):
in a ladele constructed like a fork. Anyway. I haven't
done any scientific research into this, but I know a
good amount of the latter day Saint history, including the
less favorable bits and the ceremonies that are carried out
in the temple. I actually used to officiate in some
of the ceremonies. The oil used inside and outside of

(29:45):
the temple has, to my knowledge, always been olive oil. Yeah,
that was what I found in my reading as well.
Josh says, I've also visited the Saint George Temple as
it happens. There is a baptistery in the basement, but
the font is filled with Is it HeLa monster oil?

Speaker 2 (30:01):
No, it's water.

Speaker 3 (30:03):
Bishops also don't have an official role in the temple,
so that detail was another red flag. Okay, yeah, so
it was saying bishops or the I think doing the
ones who are consecrating with the lizard oil. So that
also does not check out with Josh's experience. Anyway, I
thought i'd throw another email your way. I usually don't
have much expertise in the areas you're discussing, so it's

(30:24):
fun to be able to chime in when I can.
Keep up the good work. Josh. Well, thank you, Josh,
And as always, we love to hear feedback on episodes
if you have personal experience or expertise where you can
shed light on the things we talk about it. You know,
we as comes up on the show. Often we learn
about things by reading about them, so we love when
people can add things from their personal experience.

Speaker 2 (30:45):
Absolutely. All right, let's see what do we have here next? Hmm, glancing, glancing? Okay,
all right, here's one from Andy, Andy right send with
the subject line all the usual things fans say and
a topic suggestion, Okay, as long as they are the
usual things, and Andy says, Hey, Robin Joe, first of all,

(31:11):
love the show. I'll start by making y'all cringe. I
actually discovered the show at the start of twenty twenty
four and spent the next year and a half listening
to every episode available on Spotify and have kept up
with this show since. Yes, all the way back to
twenty ten and the Stuff from the Science Lab days.
The show makes for great listening while running my route
every day. I will explain this for anyone who's not familiar.

(31:33):
This show began as a podcast called Stuff from the
Science Lab that I hosted with at the time my
science editor at HowStuffWorks dot com, Alison Loudermilk, who I
do still keep up with but and as far as
I know, she's doing great. But yeah, that's how it
started out, and then it became Stuff to Blow your mind.

(31:54):
Fast forward to today here we are. Yeah, some folks
do like to go back and listen to those all
that I do not. That was a long time ago,
when boy, we were just really hitting the ground running
and figuring out how this whole audio podcast thing worked
and was supposed to work.

Speaker 3 (32:13):
Yeah, well, just to mention my own self focused cringe.
So you know, I didn't join the show until twenty fifteen,
but I do sometimes shudder with fear imagining going back
and listening to the earliest episodes I did and when
I didn't know what I was doing yet. I don't know.
I don't want to find out what I sounded like

(32:33):
back then, But imagining hearing myself figuring out podcasting while
doing it is not something that sounds super appealing to me.
But you know, I'm glad some listeners have been enjoying
we were doing our best then as we are now.
I hope, at least speaking for myself, I hope I've
been able to improve over the years that I was

(32:55):
doing this.

Speaker 2 (32:56):
All right, Well, Andy continues and says, I think the
thing that blows mind most about what you guys do
is the way you take the most seemingly mundane topics,
such as spoons, and make such interesting episodes with them,
begging the question is there really anything truly mundane in
this world?

Speaker 3 (33:13):
Well, I'm glad you like that, Andy. I'd say it's
a core part of our mission. You know, almost everything
that we take for granted and look at without having
a second thought about is pretty weird and amazing if
you dig deep enough on iteah, just because reality is
weirder than we remember to notice.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
Yeah, I think the most important thing is to stay
curious about the world and about yourself. You know, this
is nothing new, This is like growth mindset stuff. But yeah,
I really do believe that curiosity and openness to learn
and to change is a fire inside you. It's a
fire that has to be nurtured. And if that fire
ever goes out, then then you're dead. You're dead before

(33:55):
your body dies. So keep it strong and feed it
whatever you need to feed it whatever. Wherever your interests
take you, follow those you know, and keep yourself open
to it. Yeah, all right, Andy has more to say,
though I haven't written in until now because I pretty
much never have anything to contribute. But I recently saw
a video on TikTok about a creature I think y'all

(34:17):
would really enjoy talking about if you haven't already, fifteen
plus years of episodes make it hard to remember what
all has been covered. That would be the Sea Spider Class.
Let's see pisce no gan Ganada. I didn't have a
chance to look this one up beforehand, so I'm just
completely guessing at it. Pison no gandada not a true spider,

(34:39):
but an arthropod more closely related to crabs, with a
body so small that some of its organs actually reside
in its legs. When I saw this animal, I thought
it was so fascinatingly creepy, and in instantly thought of
you crab lovers.

Speaker 3 (34:53):
I think we've talked about sea spiders at least in passing.
I don't think we've done a whole series on them,
but I remember doing some kind of research tangent on
like sea spiders in Antarctic waters. Maybe we're talking about
something in like very cold south seas. I'm not sure,
but we've done a little bit about them, I think,
But yeah, it could could totally be worth a deeper dive.

Speaker 2 (35:17):
I love it when animals put organs or in very
important body parts internal body pots into their arms and
legs totally. We've talked about a little bit about that
with spiders. We've talked about things sort of like brains
inside the limbs of say octopi.

Speaker 3 (35:33):
With the ganglia, like you don't need to do all
the thinking in your head, spread it out a bit.

Speaker 2 (35:38):
Yeah, yeah, and I believe on a monster fact I
about I talked once about the Marvel mutant mystique the
shape shifter. When I know you know this one from
the movies show, but in the comic books there's what.
At one point, she's a shape shifter. She can move
her body around, and she survives a gunshot to the
head by moving her brain down into her I think
her arm or something so that nothing crucial is hit

(35:59):
when she that gunshot, and then she just like moves
everything back into the right place later.

Speaker 3 (36:04):
Smart. It's good thinking. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:07):
Anyway, Andy pops it all off by saying thanks for
all the edutainment you guys provide every week. I know
that also makes you guys cringe, but it seems so appropriate.
Keep up the great work, and here's too many more
years of blowing people's minds.

Speaker 3 (36:21):
Are you not edutained? Thank you, Andy. We appreciate you
writing in, We appreciate the kind words, and we appreciate
you listening. Let's see, Okay, I'm gonna do some ooh
a response to Palp facts. How about that?

Speaker 2 (36:42):
Oh yeah, yeah, this was our where we were.

Speaker 3 (36:45):
Doing some kind of fact checking or digging on statements
made by Emperor Palpatine in the Star Wars universe, and
one of the big segments we did there, I did
a deep dive on to what extent Emperor Palpatine is correct.
I guess this is before he's the Emperors. What is
Senator Palpatine correct when he says anger makes you stronger,

(37:09):
it gives you focus, makes you stronger. Is that true?
It is kind of half true. It does and it doesn't,
depending on what you need to do. So subject line
this is from Ian subject line anger and goal attainment.
Dear Robin Joe. As always, I'm way behind on episode,
so apologies if someone has already written in about this,
but I'm listening to the Palpfacts episode where you discussed

(37:32):
anger as either increasing goal attainment through persistence or decreasing
it through clouding judgment, and the apparent contradiction there. Having
thought about it, I think these are actually two sides
of the same coin and can be a matter of
framing existing simultaneously in the same scenario. For instance, take

(37:52):
the situation where one is stuck on a difficult section
of a video game, beating their head against the wall
in frustrating It's certainly true that the anger can make
the player more persistent, which can help accomplish the goal
of beating that section of the game. Reframed in light
of the player's original goal when they started playing, however,

(38:15):
which is presumably to have fun playing the game, the
anger is counterproductive. It is clouding their judgment about whether
to keep playing, and the angrier they get, the farther
they are from accomplishing that goal. As someone who has
been playing video games since the eighties, recognizing that inflection
point is something I still struggle with Intellectually. I know

(38:38):
I'm doing this to have fun, and if I'm not
having fun, I should stop, but the frustration is powerful,
and actually stopping in that state is far easier said
than done. I try to monitor my enjoyment level and
drop games that I'm no longer enjoying, and while I've
gotten better at it over time, even now, I still
spite finish one from time to time. Access always for

(39:01):
the great show. Ian. Yeah, great thoughts, Ian, I think
you're exactly right. You know that can the scenario you're
describing can show both sides of that coin. I think
where anger kind of does and doesn't help us. It's
both productive and counterproductive and getting what we want. I
would complicate things though in saying that. I think there

(39:22):
are different ways that people get fulfillment from let's just
say tasks. I mean video games can be an example
of a kind of task, but you know, a project
or an accomplishment related activity. There are different ways that
can give people a positive feeling in return. I think

(39:43):
I'm probably more like you, where what I'm looking for
when I play a video game. I don't have a
lot of time for video games these days, but when
I do, I'm just trying to relax, Like I'm like,
I just want to get out, you know, wind down
and relax, And so playing like a really hard game
that requires a lot of skill is not what I'm
looking for at this point in my life. There are

(40:03):
other ways that people react relate to games, which I
think has more to do with kind of the sense
of accomplishment one gets from goal attainment and mastery, where
you know that's it. It's just a different kind of
positive feeling. And they might call that fun too, but
it's a type of fun that probably includes longer stretches

(40:26):
of frustration and thwarting along the way, and the sense
of fun you get from it is less what Ian
and I are looking for that kind of relaxation. It's
more like the feeling of accomplishment. And I don't know
if this's you know, dopamine or something like a goal
drive reward kind of scenario that you get when you

(40:47):
overcome something that's difficult.

Speaker 2 (40:50):
Yeah, yeah, this is These are great points. And I
would also add that many but not all games, but
there are certainly a number of games out there today
where you also have to factor in various manipulation levels
on the part of the design. You know, things that
are in place to keep you playing, and sometimes that
can be you have me have the motivation where I
play this game because it's fine. I you know, maybe

(41:11):
I like a little puzzle, I like a little interaction.
But then you know, the people who make the game,
they're going to add a little extra to it, and
they're gonna ask, but wait, don't you want to like
hit your daily mark and win this reward. And then
it becomes this situation I find myself feeling this where
it's like I begin to feel like the five hundred
gold that I will get from hitting some milestone is

(41:32):
like money they took from me or owe me. Therefore,
I'm like, I have this vendetta to earn it, even
though it's it's it's completely useless, and I risk reaching
that point where the game becomes frustrating instead of fine,
it becomes you know, a true time suck, instead of
something that kind of like you know, greases the gears

(41:53):
of my day.

Speaker 3 (41:54):
That actually reminds me of something that I don't really
have much direct experience with, but I've read a little
it about in the you know and how the games
industry games businesses these days, that there are i think
increasingly games where they add in like real world financial
transactions into the game, you call like micro transactions or something,

(42:16):
and that that in some cases, it has been alleged
that this leads to game developers being pressured to intentionally
make their games more frustrating or annoying so that you
can add in ways that real world financial transactions can
be used to bypass the parts of the game that
are intentionally unfun. So it's like here's your game, you know,

(42:39):
pay five bucks to turn off this feature that makes
the game really annoying, and bothers.

Speaker 2 (42:45):
You Yeah, yeah, I mean it's it's real and it's there,
just like there's a creeping effect. I think in a
lot of these games, Like some of these games are
just all in on the you know, on the you know,
charging the player and you know, putting price tags on everything,
real world price tag than everything. And in other cases
it's like just no matter how fun and innocent the
game may be, you're going to have that. You know,

(43:07):
the corporate world is going to infringe on it. I mean,
it is going to be a business at the end
of the day, and that's going to change things.

Speaker 3 (43:13):
Yeah, totally. And this by no means applies only to games.
I mean there is generally, I would say within the
digital businesses and digital media space, there is more of
a desire to shift away from discrete transactions where you
sell somebody a piece of content and now they have
it and that was one isolated transaction, more into trying

(43:36):
to cultivate ongoing financial relationships where you know, it's a
subscription model now and the consumer will be continually paying.
It creates ongoing revenue for the company instead of just
a one time sale. So everybody in the digital media
space is businesses are trying to find ways to turn
what was once a one time sale into an ongoing

(43:57):
financial relationship where they charge you over and over.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
Yeah, and it's like both both versions stuck because either
just thinking back to games that I've liked, that I've
enjoyed or do enjoy playing on my phone, like there's
one really good one and clearly they didn't monetize it
enough it's no longer available, like, or they get changed
into some mode that was much more of a pain
to play and it's just gone. It's and it's not

(44:21):
coming back. And then you know, there's another one where
it's like, Okay, there are a number of annoying factors here,
but they seem to be making money and it's still going.
I can still play it and it's not too painful
to do so, so it's like, you know, I guess
you have to choose between these these extremes like evolution
or extinction, but sometimes they're really fun right before they

(44:41):
go go extinct. So I don't know.

Speaker 3 (44:43):
All right, do you want to do some weird house
cinema messages?

Speaker 2 (44:46):
Yeah, let's actually let's go ahead and call on sun
raw because this is one that I know you wanted
to read. I want to I want to hear it.
And we had intended to use it last time, and
we just had to double check something for this time.

Speaker 3 (44:58):
Oh okay, so you want me read this one from Jan?

Speaker 2 (45:01):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (45:02):
Yeah, okay, okay. So at the end of our episode
on the Sun Raw movie, Space is the Place, Rob
asked listeners to write in if they had ever seen
Sun Raw and the Solar Orchestra in concert. I added
that listeners should also write in if they had ever
been a member of the orchestra. We didn't quite get that,
but Jan wrote in to share a blog post that

(45:25):
they wrote called the Week I worked for Sun Raw.
So this is pretty awesome. This is I'm just and
I asked Jan for permission to read this blog post
on the show. Jan said yes, So this is the
blog post. It was some time between nineteen eighty and
nineteen eighty three, and I was between my two stints

(45:48):
at Massachusetts College of Art. I was thrilled to discover
that Sun Raw had a five day performance planned for
the Longwood Theater, the very stage where I had spent
many hours doing every job, from lighting to acting to producing.
Arriving very early the first day of the performance, I
found Sunraw and his orchestra alone in the theater without

(46:09):
a single representative of the college to be found. John
Gilmore and Marshall Allen were desperately searching for things like
light switches. Luckily for all involved, I knew the space.
Like whatever cliche inserted here, I made a few quick
phone calls to my pals and easily had a staff
willing to work for the comp for comp tickets. My

(46:30):
friends sold and took tickets and did lights gladly, and
I played supervisor. Not only did I get a front
row seed for three of the shows, I had to
work during two of the shows, but I was rewarded
with a private audience with Sunraw backstage. He gave me
his personal thanks and signed my freshly purchased Saturn Records
copy of I Pharaoh, first informing me that it was

(46:54):
their last copy of the album and then regaling me
with an epic vision of what I was to experience.
It's upon listening to the vinyl quote, you will be
transported to ancient times and see other worlds.

Speaker 2 (47:06):
Oh wow.

Speaker 3 (47:07):
To this day, I have no idea who could have
scheduled this astounding event and not showed up. But I
am quite grateful to them, and that's the end. So Jan,
thank you so much for sharing this. That is awesome.
I am really glad you were there to guide Sonraw
and the orchestra through the space of the theater. And yeah,

(47:29):
what a what a crazy scenario. Who could have just
like somebody just ghosted Sunraw just never showed up.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
Yeah, weird, weird, but yeah, this I love it. This
is you know, it goes to show you Sometimes we
put the call out there, and you know, we don't
expect there to be someone out there with an experience
that lines up with what we just talked about, but
then in many cases there is. So I love it all.

Speaker 3 (47:59):
Right.

Speaker 2 (47:59):
This next one comes to us from Lee and this
is Oh, this is a Godzilla related message. I don't
know that it's really responding. It's not really responding to
a particular Godzilla movie that we cover in Weird House Cinema,
but we have covered more than one Godzilla film, and
we will come back to more Godzilla in the future.

Speaker 3 (48:17):
I think the most recent one we did was Godzilla
versus Mecha Godzilla, right, that's right. Yeah. Oh, and I
should just add that since the last Godzilla Weird House
episode we did, I finally saw Godzilla minus one and beautiful, amazing.
I loved it. I cried it was so good.

Speaker 2 (48:34):
Oh wow, it's still on my watch list. I haven't
seen it yet, Rob.

Speaker 3 (48:37):
I think you'll love it. It's it's excellent.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
Okay, all right, well this is what Lee has to say.
Lie says Hi, Joe and Rob thought you to appreciate this.
I had trouble enjoying Godzilla after learning that the texture
of his skin is patterned after the keloid scars of
atomic bomb survivors. It seemed like such an ever present,
dark symbol literally covering the creature. However, I realized that
if got Godzilla can get past his own traumatic origins

(49:02):
to become a character who also experiences lighter themes and
even comedy than Who am I to let the visible
marks of his trauma limit his emotional range? In my mind, now,
I love Godzilla as a figure who bears the scars
of pot past trauma, but is not ultimately defined by
his traumatic origins. I hope this gives you the same
warmth of godzilla resilience that it gives me. Best, Lee,

(49:25):
that's beautiful, Thank you, Lee, Yeah, yeah, I love it. Okay.

Speaker 3 (49:29):
One last weird house message. This is from Daniel's subject
to line weird House cinema recommendation Angel's Egg. Good evening.
I'm sat on a plane currently enjoying the episode on
the White Reindeer, and someone said it's a very dialogue
light film. Points that's true. Yeah, long stretches of silence,
Daniel says. I checked the run time prior to the episode,

(49:51):
and basically, for and basically for no other reason than
the lack of color and dialogue and the short run time,
my mind went to Angels Egg. I'm sure you all
have seen or at least heard of it before, but
I think it's fantastically weird and the artistry is exceptional.
If you haven't seen or heard of it, it's a
two character, beautifully animated film with heavy Christian theological elements.

(50:15):
I'd love to hear you all discuss it. Thanks for
the entertainment and education. Oh but you didn't slam the
words together, entertainment and education, Daniel, Thank you, Daniel. I
haven't seen it. I think it's come up when I've
been looking around for options to do on the show before,
but I've never gone deep reading about it, so I'm
only vaguely aware of it. By title and poster. That's

(50:37):
about it.

Speaker 2 (50:39):
Yeah. Same. I've never seen it and honestly not particularly
familiar with it. So you never underestimate my ability to
not know about a given film. I know about a
lot of them, but there there's just too many of them.
There's not enough time to see them all. There's not
enough time to know of them all. But this I
did notice that this is from a writer and director

(51:00):
Mo rue Oshe who is the director most known to
me anyway as the director and writer of Ghost in
the Shell and its sequel, Ghost in the Shell Too,
among many other things. And I love both of those
movies and have considered looking at Ghost in the Shell
one or two on the show before. So I should
really check this out because again, enjoyed both of those films,

(51:22):
would love to check out more of his work.

Speaker 3 (51:26):
Okay, do we need to wrap it up there for today.
We've got some more messages, but we might have to
save them for the next batch.

Speaker 2 (51:32):
Yeah. Yeah, I think we went on a bit too
long to get to some of these other ones, but
we'll save them. We'll come back to it maybe in
the next month, if not the month after. Basically whenever
we reach that point where like it is time, the
less listener mail is time, that's when we'll hit it.
In the meantime, we just say, yeah, keep it coming in,
keep writing in. We don't have time to read all

(51:54):
of these on listener mail, We don't have time to
respond personally to all of the mail that comes in.
We do read it all, and we do greatly appreciate it.
And just as we appreciate you spending any amount of
your time listening to our show and or watching our
show as it's available on Netflix. You know, we realize
there are a lot of options out there, and we're

(52:15):
humbled that you take time out of your day for us.
We'll just ask that, hey, as long as you are
listening and or watching to us wherever that happens to be, rate, review, subscribe.
If you're on Netflix, give us a couple of thumbs up,
and also as to be reminded about new episodes. All
these things help us out in the long run. If
you're on social media, look us up. We're stuff to

(52:37):
blow your mind on those. If you're on letterbox dot
com the film website that is, you know a great
way to track movies you've seen, movies you want to
see and so forth. We are a weird house on there,
and we have a nice list going of all the
films that we've covered over the years and sometimes look
ahead at what comes up next.

Speaker 3 (52:54):
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
a topic for the future, or to send whatever kind
of message that may be featured on a future listener
mail episode like this one, you can write us at
contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

Speaker 1 (53:19):
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.