March 29, 2021 • 41 mins
Once more, it's time for a weekly dose of Stuff to Blow Your Mind and Weirdhouse Cinema listener mail...
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of
My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Listener mail. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.
And it's been a lot of groans over here lately
because Carney, our loyal mail bot, has now been procedurally
generating dad jokes, and they are not very good. Rob
(00:26):
did you catch that most recent one? Uh? Yeah, I did,
you know, but you know, it may not have been funny,
but it's it's endearing in a way, you know. Yeah,
so so he It's all stuff like what do you
call a turkey that goes to space? I don't know.
What do you call a turkey the coast of space?
Poo poo in the toilet? The answer? M hmm, okay.
I have questions about the logic behind that one. But
(00:49):
you know, that's the thing about artificial intelligence is that
you let it run wild, and it begins operating on
a level that we can no longer connect with. That's right.
You don't know if it's too stupid to be funny,
or if it's so far over your head that you'll
never catch up. Could be either way. Uh So, Luckily,
Carney is still obeying his basic programming. He is still
(01:11):
bringing us listener mail, and of course everybody out there,
you're still sending us listener mail related to our stuff
to blow your mind. Episodes are artifact episodes are weird,
how cinema episodes. So once more we have a selection
of listener mail to consider. That's right, We've got the
seasonal yearly inundation of Dad jokes and uh, and we're
very excited to get right into them. Rob do you
(01:32):
want to start off? Let's see, should I read this
one from Brett about the Nile inundation? Go for it.
Brett says, Hello, Joe and Robert. I hope this note
finds you both well. I just wanted to write a
quick note about the Nile episode and how you guys
were able to take it to a biochemical angle. You
(01:53):
have had Daniel whiteson on your show before, and he
has mentioned a quote about the ocean that I forget
in detail. It goes something like, we left the ocean
when we learned to take the water with us. Now
it seems we should say we left the water's edge,
not necessarily the ocean. H Now, I could be wrong
about this, but I think we have had Daniel Whiteson
(02:13):
on the show before. Daniel Whiteson is a physicist and
one of the hosts of Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe. Uh,
and Daniel was a great guest on the show. But
unless I'm mistaken, Brett, I think you're actually remembering us
talking about Brian Green's book Until the End of Time,
where Green in the book is explaining the role of
water in biochemistry and he quotes the Nobel Laureate Albert
(02:36):
sent Georgie, who said, quote water is life's matter and matrix,
mother and medium. There is no life without water. Life
could leave the ocean when it learned how to grow
a skin a bag in which to take the water
with it. We're still living in water, having the water
now inside. I should say it would be it would
be easy to confuse these two interviews since they occurred
(02:58):
so close together. Um, I remember we I think we
talked to Daniel Whiteson and then basically the next episode
of the next week was when we talked to Brian Green. Yeah.
I think that's exactly right, But but who knows. Maybe
I'm forgetting something that we talked about with with Daniel
that was very similar. But anyway, I think, yes, this
makes a good point that what synt Georgie was saying
(03:20):
is sort of true in a broad evolutionary sense, but
it's also a little bit too simple because as we
we talked about in the Nilon Inundation episode, Uh, you
can't just have a cell be a bag of water.
A cell actually needs to very tightly control and regulate
what happens to the water contents inside it because of
how dangerous water can be too organic molecules or I
(03:42):
guess especially the long chain molecules needed for life, like DNA,
RNA and so forth. But anyway, Breath's message goes on.
You mentioned organic chemistry and how water is the enemy,
which it can be for sure. As an organic chemist,
we try to use an hydrus meaning free from water
solvents and reagents daily because of the sensitivity of the
(04:03):
reagents to something as polar as water. Water causes byproducts
which we then need to remove. But this is more
about how reactive our reagents could be to one another,
which helps us design and synthesize drugs for disease. But
I'm getting sidetracked here. The reason I write today is
because of a basic process of life that all amino
(04:24):
acids undergo to form peptides. When two amino acids linked together,
they form an amide bond from an amine and a
carboxylic acid, and the waste product of this step a
water molecule. As you can see, water is the essence
of life because it is derived from the process of
making life. It's very interesting. Our cells then had to
(04:46):
learn to regulate how much water was in the cell
as more and more peptide bonds were formed. But this
is at a very small amount relative to the size
of a cell. Please keep the twists coming. I really
enjoyed how you were able to start with crop growing
for food and lead it to how life might have started.
Definitely one of my favorite podcasts, and I look forward
(05:08):
to what you guys will discuss next. Cheers Brett. Yes,
our discussions are are are lawless affair. You never know
where they're gonna go, what we're gonna end up talking about. Uh,
it's very very free form. Some of the time maybe chaotic,
but I hope at least chaotic good one would hope.
All Right, we received a lot of feedback from our
(05:28):
Dad Jokes episode, which we knew would be the case,
given how connected people are to the topic. Either, you know,
parents making bad jokes are just bad jokes in general
and humor itself. Uh so we're gonna get into some
of these now. This first one comes to us from Mark.
(05:49):
Good evening, gentlemen. I hope this finds you well. I
loved your episode on dad jokes and thought I would
share one of my own creation. I am assuming the
rule of infinite probability predicts either some one has already
made it or will soon enough. Anyway, here it goes question,
what do you call a questionable toilet? Answer? A skeptic tank.
(06:12):
I hope you enjoyed my lame joke. Thanks for all
the knowledge. Mark. Why does Mark get a voice a
voice for a listener before? I don't know, just because
he's I don't know, good evening gentleman's tended to demand it.
So it just happened. Good evening to you, Mark. A
skeptic tank. Okay, uh okay, close, Yeah, yeah, I like it.
(06:38):
I think it'll work. I would tell it to my son,
except I'm not sure he knows what a what a
septic tank is. At this point. I'd have to first
school him in that then wait, wait a few days,
and then release the joke on him. Um, so just
educating him as a precursor to sharing humor. Dad, why
the six hour lesson about septic tanks? Just wait until Thursday.
(06:59):
It'll come together, alright. This next message comes from Jim
in New Jersey. Jim says Robert and Joe, the purpose
of dad jokes is to embarrass your adolescent children in
front of their adolescent friends. If you can embarrass your
children in public from time to time, why even bother
(07:20):
to have them. Jim in New Jersey PS, I didn't
get the assassin joke until I listened to it for
the second time. Oh. Yeah, that one is rather tricky,
isn't it. Uh this is a good point, Uh, the
Jim raises, and I think one that I don't know
how much we've got into it, but I think this
does fall into the category of like the teasing joke. Um,
(07:41):
you know, the joke as a way of teasing. Parental
teasing as one of the categories of teasing that humans
engage in. Yeah, And one of the things we talked
about in the episode was the possibility that sometimes when
you make bad jokes at like an adolescent or teenager.
It can at least elicit some kind of noticeable reaction
from them when not much else does. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
(08:09):
all right. Here's another one. This one comes to us
from Sebastian Hi, Rob, Joe, and Seth for the recent
dad jokes episode. I just wanted to add a couple
of bits of information. The first is that in French,
or at least in Canadian French, the equivalent term to
dad jokes is uh and forgive me my I'm terrible.
With the French uh le jokes demons uncle or um
(08:33):
or uh leblas de mon monacle, depending on your region.
This translates not to dad jokes, but rather too uncle jokes,
with the understanding that dad jokes in French are a
lot more brown and blue than in English, and that
it's considered to be the responsibility of the uncles to
corrupt their nieces and nephews when the sister or sister
(08:54):
in law isn't there to shoot them. Many a Christmas
dinner have led to comparisons of gravy to diarrhea as
soon as the matriarch's attention is diverted. In a French household,
this is what we hear about that sophisticated French sense
of humor. The Americans, you know, just we can't get there, yeah,
(09:15):
Uncle Pierre. Anyway, they continue. The second thing is that
I take mild exception to you are using the army's
sleeve's joke as an example of a dad joke. Maybe
it's more of a Canadian thing, but dad jokes here
are usually considered more contextual and opportunistic. They tend to
be cheap and fast and lack structure, and to be
(09:35):
tied directly to observations in the immediate environment, such as
pointing out things that look like a butt, or deliberately
mishearing things. Oh god, this is a big one. Mom
says you should thank your dad, causes the dad to say,
I should shank the cat for this angle. Dad jokes
are more like riffing, albeit a more infantile type of
riffing based on crafts humor. Yes, the mishearing things was,
(10:01):
um what was pretty big in my household, and also
from I think from my dad, But I always I
didn't know it was universal. I was kind of chalked
it up to the fact that my dad's hearing was
a little like his hearing was a little bit damaged,
so I think he oftentimes did not hear things all
the way and found humor in them and then kind
of past that form of humor on to all of
(10:23):
us so that we're all intolerable in conversations with other people. Now,
I think that is more universal that uh. I think
that's a kind of classic movie riff, where whatever is
in the dialogue is hard to hear, and then you
can you can go off of it. I can't think
of a perfect example right now, but I know there's
a lot of that on Mystery Science Theater. Yeah. Um, anyway,
(10:43):
they continue. Similarly, there's a growing concept of mom jokes
that I've seen more and more, at least among Canadians.
Whereas dad jokes are innocent and crass, mom jokes tend
to be more exhausted and beset upon and oftentimes rather dark.
So when a kid might say I don't like broccoli,
a mom joke would be to reply with you're gonna
die of scurvy if you don't learn to ram that
(11:04):
in your face, Or if you say I don't think
those shoes will go with that dress, and they reply
with welp, I guess I should just go lay in
a ditch and wait for the cold grip of death.
In other words, whereas the dad joke is exceedingly immature,
the mom joke tends to be exceedingly mature jokes about death, disease,
abandonment and isolation and other darker topics, and usually with
(11:26):
cartoonish hyperbole and either a dead pan or over the
top delivery. But most importantly, mom jokes, like dad jokes,
are contextual and can't be repeated unless in a similar context.
Now this is that this is interesting, UM I wonder
I mean, one would be tempted to sort of take
like sort of traditional stereotypical um like gender roles and
(11:49):
apply that and think, well, okay, if you have if
you have a mom who maybe is around the kids
more like they're forced to speak and even employ humor
at a child's level, and then you you want the
release of making a joke that is more sophisticated or darker.
And whereas it might be the reverse with the sort
(12:09):
of the stereotypical dad right like the dad has been
at the I guess like the Madman era office all
day making all sorts of body and sophisticated jokes and
when he comes home, he just wants to make like crude, dumb,
but ultimately innocent jokes. I don't know. I I like
I said, that's probably a I'm sure that's a very
simplistic way to look at it, and it's ultimately more
complicated than that. But but I don't know. This is interesting.
(12:32):
I'm very familiar with this kind of humor, but I
guess I've never heard of it conceptualized as a mom
joke before. That's interesting. Yeah, anyway, they close out here
with I think the point of dad and mom jokes
is that they are the unwanted punch line to a
set up that nobody made, like a parasite of laughs
on a tense situation. A traditional joke with a standard
set up and a standard punch line feel like they
(12:54):
fall outside of this kind of humor domestic improv in
other words, at least to me hope things are. Sebastian, well,
that was a searing assault on my use of the
army sleeves joke as as an example. So, according to Sebastian,
a joke with a setup and a punch line is
not a dad joke and can never be a dad joke,
(13:15):
speaking of the Army sleeps joke, I try after you
shared it with me. I tried it out on my
own son and he already knew the punch line and
thought it was hilarious. Um. Now, I don't know how
much of that was the fact that he knew the
punch line and therefore it was not my joke, it
was his. But but he thought it was just high humor. Well,
(13:36):
there's no higher praise than making a child laugh or
not phrase? Uh? What was it? No higher honor than
making a child laugh? One last one about dad jokes here.
This one comes from Danny. She says, Hi, I'm a
mother and love making my son grown with dad jokes,
(13:56):
simply because it's fun to be able to annoy him
a little bit. Kids can be quite annoying at times,
and here is a small childish way to annoy them back.
And sometimes he even laughs at how much my jokes
annoy him. Love from Switzerland, Danny, You know the revenge factor?
We didn't even think about that. All right, are you
(14:20):
ready for some spoons? Let's do it? Okay. This one
picks up after we read a message from a listener
on previous listener mail about a spoon that was designed
to discourage left handedness, and it could only be easily
used at least with the right hand, because the bowl
part of the spoon bent to the left. And we
talked briefly about how I remembered at least one of
(14:42):
my teachers in elementary school telling me that when they
were growing up, left handedness was bullied out of them
by adults who thought that there was something wrong with it.
I don't know if it was a religious thing or
just a sort of cultural uh you know, No, you
need to suck it up and learn to use your
right hand like you're supposed to. I'm not sure what
that was, but Darren Darren has a story along those
(15:02):
same lines. So Darren says, Hi, gents, I've listened for years,
but the latest Listener Mail episode really spoke to me.
Back in nineteen eighty one, growing up in South Yorkshire, England,
our class teacher of German descent told us stories of
him having his left hand tied closed as a child.
He told us this almost apologetically, as he was aware
(15:25):
his now right handed writing was sometimes difficult to read. Ironically,
then at school there would be an incident only a
few weeks later, where we were in the dinner hall
having school lunch, the head mistress singled me out for
having my knife in my left hand. She berated me,
saying that I needed to eat right handed, and I
(15:45):
tried but couldn't. Embarrassed to the point where I took
a stand as a nine year old, I walked out
of school, the head mistress furious at me, and my
classmates cheering all the way back home. Yes, walking from
school was a thing. My parents at first were annoyed
I was home early, but when I explained why, my
dad went down to the school, and let's just say that,
(16:05):
he made it clear that I'd continue using my knife
with my left hand. I tell my daughter this story
and she is amazed that this was only really a
generation ago. Thank you for hopefully taking time to consider
this email, and thanks for continuing to blow mine in
my daughter's minds. Kind regards, Darren. Yeah, I mean, it's
that's it's crazy that that sort of thing took place.
(16:27):
I mean, if them now, it seems crazy, and I
don't know, it's hard to imagine at the time how
that would have how that was was was allowed. I
don't know, it's just crazy to think about. Okay, I'm
getting more convinced that maybe we should do this as
an episode and look into like, why is it that
they were doing. I mean, was it just the idea that, well,
a lot of things are designed for right handed people
(16:49):
and it will be easier if kids learned how to
use the right hands for things. Or is it more
like a I don't know, superstitious religious thing where it's
like the left hand is the hand of the devil. Yeah,
I remember there being at least a little bit of
that mixed in. Yeah, it's been a while since I
looked at it, so yeah, we should we shoul think
about coming back to this as a topic. Al Right,
(17:14):
here's another one. This one comes to us uh from Maybe,
and it is about spoons once more. Dear Robert and Joe,
I just finished listening to your excellent spoon episodes. Regarding
the fancy silvil ware that never gets used, I have
a story. My mother hated silver ware because polishing the
silver had been one of her household chores when she
(17:35):
was young. However, she and my father were rather badly
off financially for many years, so they used sterling silverware
because they couldn't afford to buy a set of stainless flatware.
The silverware had been a wedding gift. When I was
about ten. They bought stainless and we never used the
silver again, not even for holidays. It just amuses me
that the stainless flatlet where was the aspirational purchase, given
(17:57):
how expensive real silverware is. They gave me a nice
set of stainless steel flatware when I got married. Also,
I submit that sports are the perfect utensil for baked
potatoes and for mango has. Thanks for all the great content, Mayve,
rob do I need to stop you from exploding with
invective against may Have for defending the use of sports. Um,
(18:21):
I mean, I guess if if they want to use them, fine,
but I would argue, I mean of spoon works perfectly
fine out a baked potato. I don't know why anybody
needs a fork to get in there. And uh, mango has,
I guess mango. The thing about mango, I will admit
is it does tend to be a bit slippery. Um So,
(18:44):
I guess that is that is where one might insist
upon having some some prongs on your utensil. Um So,
I've certainly never used a sport to eat them, maybe trying.
I think I've just used a spoon to eat mango
that has been like properly cut up in all, but
I don't know. It's rare I get my hands on
a mango in this household because my son eats them all.
(19:05):
I didn't include the full message, but we did also
get a piece of email from somebody who wanted to
talk about grapefruit spoons. Yes, now that I will, I
will argue strongly that a grapefruit spapoon is not a spork.
But I I do believe in grape fruit spoons. I
think they are They're very handy. I prefer to use
one when I eat a grape fruit, though I was once.
(19:25):
This was when we were, you know, more properly. I
guess when we were how stuff works. I remember eating
a grape fruit with a grapefruit spoon, and there's somebody else,
like they worked in the office, and they they began
they were getting on my case saying, no, the grape
fruit spoon is not the way to go. You need
a grape fruit knife. You need a special knife for
(19:46):
eating your grape fruit. That is the only way to
eat them the spoon is malarkey? Is this strickland? No?
I don't remember who this individual was. They weren't like
in our department. I think they were more of a
technical role in the cup. But it was one of
those where like they were coming on kind of strong,
and I think I kind of like backed out of
the room with my grape fruit and spoon. I mean,
(20:08):
maybe the argument was like, this is a better way
to eat your grapefruit at your computer, because certainly, like
when you eat a grape fruit, when I eat a
grape fruit with a grape fruit spoon, it still makes
kind of a mess, like you're gonna get some sprays
of citrus. So maybe the knife cuts down on that
to a certain extent. I don't know, but you know,
that was back in the glorious time when we had cubicles,
(20:29):
and those cubicle walls could protect your next door neighbors
from the citrus spray. That's right. At least it's only
you and your stuff that are getting doused in citrus
juice in you in your dink cave of bones. And
we remember you had some really weird decorations when I
first moved in. Well, you know, stuff kind of accumulated. No,
I mean it was good. I was like, I could
see your desk and I was like, that's good people. Okay,
(20:57):
This next message comes to us from Paul. It is
about sun dogs and halos. Paul says, Hi, Robin Joe
just had to throw this link your way regarding halos
and sundogs. One of the most impressive I've ever seen.
Thanks for the great comment. And then Paul attaches a
link to an Astronomy Picture of the Day UH entry.
A p o D is a thing that NASA does
(21:18):
where they collect cool photographs of natural phenomenon and photographs
from space and stuff. This one was by a photographer
named Let's see Magnus ed Back and it's from the
twenty one December two thousand eighteen if you want to
look it up. The caption UH title was extraordinary solar
(21:39):
halos and this one is fantastic. The caption explanations says
quote captured at lunchtime on a cold December fourteenth near
Ute and Doll, Sweden. The image includes the relatively ordinary
twenty two degree halo, sun dogs or par helia, and
sun pillars, the extensive array of rarer halo those has
(22:00):
been identified, along with previously unknown features. All the patterns
are generated as sunlight or moonlight is reflected and refracted
in flat six sided water ice crystals in Earth's atmosphere.
In this case, likely local contributors to the atmospheric ice
crystals are snow making machines operating at a nearby ski center.
(22:20):
That's interesting, but the yeah, this picture is worth looking up.
It is gorgeous and it looks almost like the Earth
is plummeting down a tunnel made of sun's. Yeah, this
is impressive. It looks I'm it kind of seems like
a cosmic church window to me, or indeed like some
sort of angelic visitation. It almost has like the makings
(22:41):
of some sort of inhuman face. It's this is gorgeous,
But that's hilarious that this may well be aided by
the utter artificiality of a snow making machine. It is
angered the gods. Alright, for this next one, if you're
(23:04):
listening on a device that has a way to speed
up things, uh, speed up our voices. Go ahead and
speed us up to about three eggs because it will
be appropriate. This one comes to us from Jesse, Dear
Robert and Joe. On the most recent listener Mail episode one,
someone wrote in mentioning that they listen to podcast up
to three times speed. Robert, you mentioned that while you
(23:26):
were listening to sped up audio, you feel like your
mind speeds up to keep pace, and you find it unsettling. Joe,
you notice that it affects the way you perceive the
speed which someone is speaking in regular conversation. I too,
have sped up podcast to get through backlogs. I noticed
that when I listened to podcasts at a higher speed,
I feel increased stresses. My mind has to work harder
(23:47):
and pay closer attention so I don't miss anything. But
more than that, if I listen at increased speeds for
a few days or more, I feel like it starts
to affect my own speech. I notice I tend to
speak more quickly, which means my mind can't always keep
up and I end up tripping over my words. Another
thing I've noticed is when I slowed down a conversational
podcasts such as Stuff to Bow Your Mind to around
(24:09):
point eight times, it has a subtle relaxing effect. This
intuitively makes sense. I don't notice it's slowing down my speech,
but I suspect this is because I do this exclusively
for podcasts that I put on to help me get
to sleep. This is not when I do most of
my podcast listening, so perhaps it doesn't have to have
as much of a chance to mess with my head
(24:30):
as it would during the day. One last thing, As
other listeners have admitted, I too have listened to stuff
to bow your mind to get me to sleep when
it is your turn. Though it is a vault episode
that I turned to that way, I don't feel like
I am missing out on anything. Please know that you're
not boring, just common, relaxing, stay brilliant, Jesse. Oh thanks Jesse.
(24:51):
Oh my god, I can't imagine listening to us at
zero point eight speed. Yeah, that sounds so drunk, just hammer. Yeah,
if you if you heard me laughing a little bit
or through my reading of that, it's it's uh not
not because there's I'm I'm I'm judging Jesse for doing this,
but I'm just imagining that if I did that, it
(25:12):
would be kind of like nightmare juice, because I have
like literally had nightmares in which voices are slowed down.
So it's not something I really I really like, but
I could second see where it could be relaxing for
someone else. I mean, you and I both have Tennessee
speech anyway, which is already on the slower side of
accent pace, and oh man, that that would be rough.
(25:34):
But anyway, it's interesting to hear to hear from everyone,
you know, just there's so many nuances to how people
listen to podcasts that it's always interesting to pick up
on what the trends are. And I guess it what
used to be not as easy to do this, right?
I mean when did iPhones and so forth start getting
that that speed up slow down option? Oh I don't know.
(25:54):
I feel like that's apt dependent for me. It depends
on what I used to listen Google podcast, So we'll
let you pick pretty much any speed you want. Yeah,
but of course they're also like trying to shame you
and to listen to everything. I noticed, like when I
use it and it's like I go to a podcast
I haven't listened to in a few days and it's like,
have you given up on this podcast? You still want
to be subscribed at all? And I'm like, yes, I
(26:16):
just wasn't in the car for a few days. I said,
don't want to keep up with it. Don't make me
feel bad just because I just because I'm like, you know,
a few dozen episodes behind. I'm gonna get to it.
But seriously, we love you Apple. Okay, let's go on
to our next one. What do we have for us here, Joe? Okay, now,
(26:38):
we got some messages about Weird House Cinema. All right,
some very substantive messages about Weird House. So we'll say
this first one comes from John. John says, Hi, Robert
and Joe. I just listen to your Weird House Cinema
episode on Hands of Steel, and I enjoyed it a lot.
I actually passed through Page, Arizona last week and after
leaving town, walked on the Navajo footbridge where the finale
(27:01):
took place. It's a great but vertigo inducing view of
the Colorado River before the canyon really widens out. I'm
also writing because I noticed a funny connection between the
movie and it's real world setting. Although I can't speak
for acid rain. Remember in the movie, there was a
there was like a stationary acid rain hazard. There's like
a sign on the highway there's like warning you're about
(27:23):
to drive through acid rain, which is pretty great. Um,
uh sorry, John goes on. Although I can't speak for
acid rain, the state of Arizona does have an ongoing
history of water and land pollution from mining, including groundwater
pollution by the acid waste of copper mines. Southern Arizona
has a high concentration of large open pit copper mines,
(27:45):
and in order to extract the copper from or strong
acid solutions are often used, along with other toxic chemicals.
These waste products can leach into the surrounding environment, including
into groundwater, endangering surrounding communities. A good resource on this
is the book Boom Bust Boom, who's author Bill Carter,
recalls being poisoned by the vegetables in his own garden
(28:08):
in Bisbee, Arizona, a mining town, and learning that his
house was built on the arsenic and lead lace tailings
from a nearby copper mine. Wow and John attached some photos,
one an aerial photo and one from the ground level
of one of these open pit copper mines that has
been partially filled in. It is a It is a
truly dystopic site. Looks kind of like a like a
(28:31):
colosseum for earth elementals. Though I guess if you're an
earth elemental. I'm not sure what kind of animals they
would throw you too, maybe like some kind of rock
dissolving fungus or something. I don't know. Well, we'll come
back to that idea, um. But then John goes on.
I briefly lived in Aho, Arizona, which has its own
open pit copper mine. The now retired pit still has
(28:52):
a turquoise and toxic pool at the bottom, and the
tailings pile from the mine dominates the landscape images attached
to both though that's what these images are, Okay. While there,
I was told that the tap water had more arsenic
than would be ideal, but I can't say whether this
was from the mind or some other environmental factor. It
was fun to see a connection between the film's vision
(29:14):
of dystopian environmental degradation and the stuff that goes on
in the real world. Sometimes American truth is stranger than
Italian fiction. For a future weird house cinema, could I
suggest Altered States. Given that the podcast has discussed Timothy
Leary and Terence McKenna at length, this movie might be appropriate.
It seems like the writers did some brief reading about
(29:35):
traditional uses of psychedelic mushrooms and sensory deprivation, did mushrooms themselves,
and then wrote a script. Thanks for all the fun
and interesting conversations, Best John with Altered States? Am I
wrong in thinking that was written by Patty Chaievsky the
same person who wrote Network? Uh that sounds familiar? Yes, yes,
that is correct. U. Yeah, so it has an interesting writer.
(29:59):
And then of course it's a kin Russell film. Um So,
I mean I feel like we probably do need to
take on a kin Russell film at some point. I
assume you've seen Altered States, right, I have? I have.
It's been a long time since I watched it in
its entirety. Uh so it would it would totally be
a different experience watching it now, but uh, it could
be a pretty fun one. It's got some neat connections
(30:19):
in it. John Lara Catt, isn't it as an X
ray technician? Oh? That's funny. Uh So My main memory
of it is that William Hurt is the main character. Yeah,
and he plays a I don't know, Timothy Leary type
some a A an academic who becomes interested in the
use of psychedelics and in sensory deprivation tanks. And he
starts to discover that as he like does more and
(30:42):
more sensory deprivation, he like regresses to some kind of
pre previous state of existence, and which is an interesting idea,
but I think it sort of ends up with him
just like turning into a werewolf. Yeah, he's sence some
sort of like caveman monster mode towards the end, as
I recall. But in an interesting coincidence, this next piece
(31:06):
of listener mail also concerned sensory deprivation. Alright, this one
comes to us from Dan. Dan rights to Robert and Joe.
I made the unfortunate mistake of watching the Janet um
Agrin video of Teddy Bear that Robert posted on his
Commuta Music blog, and now I am trapped in the
hell Raiser Laborath dimentioned, just as Joe had warned, I
should have listened. While the pain and anguish has been
(31:28):
unbearable and my suffering soon to be legendary. My cinebye
masters have permitted me to send you this listener mail.
By the way, they're big fancy show. Earlier this week,
I was going through the show's archive and listened to
the Creepy Pasta Experiments episode that Robert did with Christian
and this episode you discussed one creepy pasta about a
Russian sleep experiment that descended into violence and madness and
(31:49):
related it to your own experiences with sensory deprivation and
isolation tanks. It made me think about how the last
twelve months since the covid vandemic forced me to start
remotely working from home, that in order to get through
my day I need to listen to a lot of
podcasts to keep me focused on my job. Ironically, if
I don't have some kind of auditory stimuli, I lose concentration,
focus and find I cannot function in a complete, in
(32:12):
complete silence. Perhaps this is related to how I used
to work in a very noisy office with a lot
of phones ringing, people talking, laughing at various machines going off,
and I need to replicate the illusion of being in
the company of a lot of people to maintain some
sense of normalcy. I wonder if you've had similar experiences
since transitioning to your home offices. Apologies for the lengthy email,
(32:33):
but I must now be going CD rom Centebyte is
calling such sites to show me. Keep up the great work,
Dan Well I'm so glad. Dan remembers there is a
c D cinemyte c D cinembyte shows up in the
third one that's in that weird club. Yeah, I think
he's a what is He's like several ideas kind of
slammed together, right, he's us. I think bartender and a
(32:55):
DJ and like a c D face. Um. At times
we may have to do uh how Raiser three Hell
on Earth at some point because it is kind of
like the Gremlins too of Hell Raiser films, you know, um,
or every everybody at the writing table gets to design
their own cinemabyte for the movie. That movie is just
(33:16):
a ladle full of vegetable shortening. It is gross. Okay,
what was I gonna say? Oh? Yeah, well this is
an interesting idea, Dan. Yeah. I sometimes find that certain
types of music and noise can help me focus on tasks,
but not any kind of music or noise, And I
(33:37):
don't know, I guess it depends on what kind of
work I'm doing. But yeah, there can certainly be a
thing I think for some people where it can be
harder to focus if you have less stimulation, because if
you have less stimulation, you're more likely to let your
mind start to wander, you know, people who are prone
to rumination, and then you get distracted by your thoughts. Yeah,
(33:58):
I mean I I can't take silence at all. Like
I'll I'll be listening to Deepeche Mode and they're like,
enjoy the silence, and I'm like, no, That's why I
put you on depeche Mode. So I don't have to
hear the silence. Now, just keep singing, so I don't
think too hard, uh for something that effect. I don't know,
you know, it varies. There's different depending on where I
am during the day. I might need something more ambient
(34:21):
or or or something a little more um complicated. But
then also it's like we live in such an area
that I'm setting out on the front porch working like
I don't really need any music. There's plenty of noises
going on, like they're multiple trains going by, there's traffic,
their dogs, their lawnmowers. There's plenty of of auditory stimuli.
(34:41):
Uh to keep me on task. You know. I gotta
say one of my all time now productivity albums is
an album that I never heard until you shared it
with me. It's Biosphere The Petrified Forest. Oh, Yeah, that
was so good. I put that one onto work all
the time. I mean all the time. That's a that's
a good one. Yeah. Yeah, uh, you can't beat Biosphere.
(35:02):
Play play a lot of Biosphere. Also play a lot
of Steve Roach. Um. Yeah, listeners out there, let us know,
do you have particular ambient or even not so ambient
tracks or artists that you turn to, uh to to work,
either during the pandemic or you know, just in general.
Let us know. We're always always looking for listening suggestions. Oh.
Another good one that I've been listening too lately to
(35:23):
work is cluster Zucker site. Yeah. Oh that's good. Yeah, older,
older stuff, but but great, still stands the test of time. Okay,
one last message here. This comes to us from Kenny.
Kenny says, Dear Robert and Joe High there from Scotland.
(35:43):
I'm a longtime listener who, like many others, enjoys your
podcasts in the evenings, often letting them play as my
wife and I go to sleep. This leads to some
very confusing blended episodes, as we fall asleep to a
discussion about Jovian moons and wake up in the night
to a debate about ancient fungus. I recently listen to
Your Weird House Cinema episode about Ewoks the Battle for Indoor,
(36:04):
and Joe made an observation that the gas giant around
which Indoor orbits being depicted on the horizon as absolutely enormous,
apparently taking up half the sky. The point was accurately
made that even from the vantage point of an observer
on Io, Jupiter's innermost moon, the gas giant would only
appear to be a fraction of the size of Tanna
(36:25):
indoors planet, and that this was done for dramatic effect
rather than accuracy. However, this got me thinking about how
our own moon appears when it is high in the
sky compared to how it does when it's on the horizon.
The Moon obviously doesn't change size, but it often appears
to us as if it does. As far as I'm aware,
The mechanism by which this occurs is not fully understood,
(36:48):
but this is referred to as the moon illusion and
as puzzled observer since antiquity. It is now commonly accepted
to be a psychological rather than a physical phenomenon. The
Moon obviously doesn't change size, but it fools us into
thinking that it does. This effect seems to have something
to do with context. When the moon is high in
the sky and there's nothing around it to give its
(37:09):
scale and help us judge distance, we see it as
relatively small because our brains interpret it as being very
far away. When it is on the horizon. However, the
moon often appears to be much larger, and it may
be that when there are other objects in our field
of view, this tricks our brain into perceiving the Moon
is significantly closer. Perhaps an observer on io would perceive
(37:30):
Jupiter to be truly vast as it rises and sets,
but smaller and ever so slightly less intimidating when it
was higher in the sky, That is, if they lasted
long enough to perceive anything at all before they succumbed
to their radiation. Bath yours, Kenny, And of course if
the moon is to the left, it's a part of
your thoughts, right yeah, And a part of my thoughts
is a part of me? Is me? Uh well? Uh so, Kenny,
(37:55):
raise some wonderful points here, uh this that I will
just jump in real quick. This has nothing to do
with their content, but they mentioned the indoor movies. Battle
for Indoor the e Walks movies. If if you out
there listening are not aware, these are finally coming to
Disney Plus, uh next month. I'm very excited by this
because when we recorded that episode on the Battle for Indoor,
(38:17):
one of the things we stressed was you sadly have
to go to like Russian YouTube to watch these things
right now, or you know, pick up a used DVD.
But soon that that that battle will be over. These
will be available on Disney Plus along with the the
excellent uh Tartarkovski Clone Wars series, So I'm excited for that.
Oh and the animated segment from the Holiday Special with
(38:40):
Boba Fette in it, but not the whole Holiday special,
right that couldn't know? I mean, I think it just
could not be allowed. It needs to remain in its prison.
That's where the gods put it. This is a good choice. Yeah,
so they're uploading the e walk So now are we
going to be able to get the Wicked the Ewalk
manson Family Eyes in four? Yeah? Yeah, hopefully so. I
(39:02):
haven't heard anything about them restore it doing any kind
of restoration on it, are certainly adding any effects to it,
so I'm guessing it'll be in It's in all its glory.
Now one wonders on the on the question of um
of possible cursing in the film, if Wilford Brimley actually
did anything like cursing, which has been an argument that's
(39:23):
been made. I wonder if they're going to go in
and remove anything. I wonder if they're gonna make any changes.
Be interested to find out if they take out Wilford
Brimley saying the F word, that is that is censorship
that will not be tolerated. Um Allegedly. We don't know
that for sure that he seasoned Afford, but some have
made that that case. If they take out the Brimley Ffford,
(39:43):
this is stall in a Strussia absolutely unacceptable. Well we
we shall see, we shall see. All right, Well, we're
gonna go ahead and close the book on everything right here.
But this has been your weekly listener mail episode. Uh so, yeah,
right in. Let us know, do you have responses to
what we talked about in this episode? You have responses
(40:04):
to our core stuff to blow your mind episodes or
two Weird House Cinema. Let us know we'd love to
hear from you. We don't have time to read everything
in these episodes, but we do read everything that comes in.
If you would like to follow our podcast, check out
the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed wherever you
find that. Just make sure you rate, review, and subscribe,
(40:25):
and don't don't let whatever whatever you're listening platform is,
you know, don't let them try and shame you. Don't
let them give you a hard time about skipping an
episode or we're having to catch up, or and certainly
listen at any speed that your brain can bear. Huge things.
As always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
(40:47):
a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is
a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
(41:07):
listen to your favorite shows
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of
My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Listener mail. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.
And it's been a lot of groans over here lately
because Carney, our loyal mail bot, has now been procedurally
generating dad jokes, and they are not very good. Rob
(00:26):
did you catch that most recent one? Uh? Yeah, I did,
you know, but you know, it may not have been funny,
but it's it's endearing in a way, you know. Yeah,
so so he It's all stuff like what do you
call a turkey that goes to space? I don't know.
What do you call a turkey the coast of space?
Poo poo in the toilet? The answer? M hmm, okay.
I have questions about the logic behind that one. But
(00:49):
you know, that's the thing about artificial intelligence is that
you let it run wild, and it begins operating on
a level that we can no longer connect with. That's right.
You don't know if it's too stupid to be funny,
or if it's so far over your head that you'll
never catch up. Could be either way. Uh So, Luckily,
Carney is still obeying his basic programming. He is still
(01:11):
bringing us listener mail, and of course everybody out there,
you're still sending us listener mail related to our stuff
to blow your mind. Episodes are artifact episodes are weird,
how cinema episodes. So once more we have a selection
of listener mail to consider. That's right, We've got the
seasonal yearly inundation of Dad jokes and uh, and we're
very excited to get right into them. Rob do you
(01:32):
want to start off? Let's see, should I read this
one from Brett about the Nile inundation? Go for it.
Brett says, Hello, Joe and Robert. I hope this note
finds you both well. I just wanted to write a
quick note about the Nile episode and how you guys
were able to take it to a biochemical angle. You
(01:53):
have had Daniel whiteson on your show before, and he
has mentioned a quote about the ocean that I forget
in detail. It goes something like, we left the ocean
when we learned to take the water with us. Now
it seems we should say we left the water's edge,
not necessarily the ocean. H Now, I could be wrong
about this, but I think we have had Daniel Whiteson
(02:13):
on the show before. Daniel Whiteson is a physicist and
one of the hosts of Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe. Uh,
and Daniel was a great guest on the show. But
unless I'm mistaken, Brett, I think you're actually remembering us
talking about Brian Green's book Until the End of Time,
where Green in the book is explaining the role of
water in biochemistry and he quotes the Nobel Laureate Albert
(02:36):
sent Georgie, who said, quote water is life's matter and matrix,
mother and medium. There is no life without water. Life
could leave the ocean when it learned how to grow
a skin a bag in which to take the water
with it. We're still living in water, having the water
now inside. I should say it would be it would
be easy to confuse these two interviews since they occurred
(02:58):
so close together. Um, I remember we I think we
talked to Daniel Whiteson and then basically the next episode
of the next week was when we talked to Brian Green. Yeah.
I think that's exactly right, But but who knows. Maybe
I'm forgetting something that we talked about with with Daniel
that was very similar. But anyway, I think, yes, this
makes a good point that what synt Georgie was saying
(03:20):
is sort of true in a broad evolutionary sense, but
it's also a little bit too simple because as we
we talked about in the Nilon Inundation episode, Uh, you
can't just have a cell be a bag of water.
A cell actually needs to very tightly control and regulate
what happens to the water contents inside it because of
how dangerous water can be too organic molecules or I
(03:42):
guess especially the long chain molecules needed for life, like DNA,
RNA and so forth. But anyway, Breath's message goes on.
You mentioned organic chemistry and how water is the enemy,
which it can be for sure. As an organic chemist,
we try to use an hydrus meaning free from water
solvents and reagents daily because of the sensitivity of the
(04:03):
reagents to something as polar as water. Water causes byproducts
which we then need to remove. But this is more
about how reactive our reagents could be to one another,
which helps us design and synthesize drugs for disease. But
I'm getting sidetracked here. The reason I write today is
because of a basic process of life that all amino
(04:24):
acids undergo to form peptides. When two amino acids linked together,
they form an amide bond from an amine and a
carboxylic acid, and the waste product of this step a
water molecule. As you can see, water is the essence
of life because it is derived from the process of
making life. It's very interesting. Our cells then had to
(04:46):
learn to regulate how much water was in the cell
as more and more peptide bonds were formed. But this
is at a very small amount relative to the size
of a cell. Please keep the twists coming. I really
enjoyed how you were able to start with crop growing
for food and lead it to how life might have started.
Definitely one of my favorite podcasts, and I look forward
(05:08):
to what you guys will discuss next. Cheers Brett. Yes,
our discussions are are are lawless affair. You never know
where they're gonna go, what we're gonna end up talking about. Uh,
it's very very free form. Some of the time maybe chaotic,
but I hope at least chaotic good one would hope.
All Right, we received a lot of feedback from our
(05:28):
Dad Jokes episode, which we knew would be the case,
given how connected people are to the topic. Either, you know,
parents making bad jokes are just bad jokes in general
and humor itself. Uh so we're gonna get into some
of these now. This first one comes to us from Mark.
(05:49):
Good evening, gentlemen. I hope this finds you well. I
loved your episode on dad jokes and thought I would
share one of my own creation. I am assuming the
rule of infinite probability predicts either some one has already
made it or will soon enough. Anyway, here it goes question,
what do you call a questionable toilet? Answer? A skeptic tank.
(06:12):
I hope you enjoyed my lame joke. Thanks for all
the knowledge. Mark. Why does Mark get a voice a
voice for a listener before? I don't know, just because
he's I don't know, good evening gentleman's tended to demand it.
So it just happened. Good evening to you, Mark. A
skeptic tank. Okay, uh okay, close, Yeah, yeah, I like it.
(06:38):
I think it'll work. I would tell it to my son,
except I'm not sure he knows what a what a
septic tank is. At this point. I'd have to first
school him in that then wait, wait a few days,
and then release the joke on him. Um, so just
educating him as a precursor to sharing humor. Dad, why
the six hour lesson about septic tanks? Just wait until Thursday.
(06:59):
It'll come together, alright. This next message comes from Jim
in New Jersey. Jim says Robert and Joe, the purpose
of dad jokes is to embarrass your adolescent children in
front of their adolescent friends. If you can embarrass your
children in public from time to time, why even bother
(07:20):
to have them. Jim in New Jersey PS, I didn't
get the assassin joke until I listened to it for
the second time. Oh. Yeah, that one is rather tricky,
isn't it. Uh this is a good point, Uh, the
Jim raises, and I think one that I don't know
how much we've got into it, but I think this
does fall into the category of like the teasing joke. Um,
(07:41):
you know, the joke as a way of teasing. Parental
teasing as one of the categories of teasing that humans
engage in. Yeah, And one of the things we talked
about in the episode was the possibility that sometimes when
you make bad jokes at like an adolescent or teenager.
It can at least elicit some kind of noticeable reaction
from them when not much else does. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
(08:09):
all right. Here's another one. This one comes to us
from Sebastian Hi, Rob, Joe, and Seth for the recent
dad jokes episode. I just wanted to add a couple
of bits of information. The first is that in French,
or at least in Canadian French, the equivalent term to
dad jokes is uh and forgive me my I'm terrible.
With the French uh le jokes demons uncle or um
(08:33):
or uh leblas de mon monacle, depending on your region.
This translates not to dad jokes, but rather too uncle jokes,
with the understanding that dad jokes in French are a
lot more brown and blue than in English, and that
it's considered to be the responsibility of the uncles to
corrupt their nieces and nephews when the sister or sister
(08:54):
in law isn't there to shoot them. Many a Christmas
dinner have led to comparisons of gravy to diarrhea as
soon as the matriarch's attention is diverted. In a French household,
this is what we hear about that sophisticated French sense
of humor. The Americans, you know, just we can't get there, yeah,
(09:15):
Uncle Pierre. Anyway, they continue. The second thing is that
I take mild exception to you are using the army's
sleeve's joke as an example of a dad joke. Maybe
it's more of a Canadian thing, but dad jokes here
are usually considered more contextual and opportunistic. They tend to
be cheap and fast and lack structure, and to be
(09:35):
tied directly to observations in the immediate environment, such as
pointing out things that look like a butt, or deliberately
mishearing things. Oh god, this is a big one. Mom
says you should thank your dad, causes the dad to say,
I should shank the cat for this angle. Dad jokes
are more like riffing, albeit a more infantile type of
riffing based on crafts humor. Yes, the mishearing things was,
(10:01):
um what was pretty big in my household, and also
from I think from my dad, But I always I
didn't know it was universal. I was kind of chalked
it up to the fact that my dad's hearing was
a little like his hearing was a little bit damaged,
so I think he oftentimes did not hear things all
the way and found humor in them and then kind
of past that form of humor on to all of
(10:23):
us so that we're all intolerable in conversations with other people. Now,
I think that is more universal that uh. I think
that's a kind of classic movie riff, where whatever is
in the dialogue is hard to hear, and then you
can you can go off of it. I can't think
of a perfect example right now, but I know there's
a lot of that on Mystery Science Theater. Yeah. Um, anyway,
(10:43):
they continue. Similarly, there's a growing concept of mom jokes
that I've seen more and more, at least among Canadians.
Whereas dad jokes are innocent and crass, mom jokes tend
to be more exhausted and beset upon and oftentimes rather dark.
So when a kid might say I don't like broccoli,
a mom joke would be to reply with you're gonna
die of scurvy if you don't learn to ram that
(11:04):
in your face, Or if you say I don't think
those shoes will go with that dress, and they reply
with welp, I guess I should just go lay in
a ditch and wait for the cold grip of death.
In other words, whereas the dad joke is exceedingly immature,
the mom joke tends to be exceedingly mature jokes about death, disease,
abandonment and isolation and other darker topics, and usually with
(11:26):
cartoonish hyperbole and either a dead pan or over the
top delivery. But most importantly, mom jokes, like dad jokes,
are contextual and can't be repeated unless in a similar context.
Now this is that this is interesting, UM I wonder
I mean, one would be tempted to sort of take
like sort of traditional stereotypical um like gender roles and
(11:49):
apply that and think, well, okay, if you have if
you have a mom who maybe is around the kids
more like they're forced to speak and even employ humor
at a child's level, and then you you want the
release of making a joke that is more sophisticated or darker.
And whereas it might be the reverse with the sort
(12:09):
of the stereotypical dad right like the dad has been
at the I guess like the Madman era office all
day making all sorts of body and sophisticated jokes and
when he comes home, he just wants to make like crude, dumb,
but ultimately innocent jokes. I don't know. I I like
I said, that's probably a I'm sure that's a very
simplistic way to look at it, and it's ultimately more
complicated than that. But but I don't know. This is interesting.
(12:32):
I'm very familiar with this kind of humor, but I
guess I've never heard of it conceptualized as a mom
joke before. That's interesting. Yeah, anyway, they close out here
with I think the point of dad and mom jokes
is that they are the unwanted punch line to a
set up that nobody made, like a parasite of laughs
on a tense situation. A traditional joke with a standard
set up and a standard punch line feel like they
(12:54):
fall outside of this kind of humor domestic improv in
other words, at least to me hope things are. Sebastian, well,
that was a searing assault on my use of the
army sleeves joke as as an example. So, according to Sebastian,
a joke with a setup and a punch line is
not a dad joke and can never be a dad joke,
(13:15):
speaking of the Army sleeps joke, I try after you
shared it with me. I tried it out on my
own son and he already knew the punch line and
thought it was hilarious. Um. Now, I don't know how
much of that was the fact that he knew the
punch line and therefore it was not my joke, it
was his. But but he thought it was just high humor. Well,
(13:36):
there's no higher praise than making a child laugh or
not phrase? Uh? What was it? No higher honor than
making a child laugh? One last one about dad jokes here.
This one comes from Danny. She says, Hi, I'm a
mother and love making my son grown with dad jokes,
(13:56):
simply because it's fun to be able to annoy him
a little bit. Kids can be quite annoying at times,
and here is a small childish way to annoy them back.
And sometimes he even laughs at how much my jokes
annoy him. Love from Switzerland, Danny, You know the revenge factor?
We didn't even think about that. All right, are you
(14:20):
ready for some spoons? Let's do it? Okay. This one
picks up after we read a message from a listener
on previous listener mail about a spoon that was designed
to discourage left handedness, and it could only be easily
used at least with the right hand, because the bowl
part of the spoon bent to the left. And we
talked briefly about how I remembered at least one of
(14:42):
my teachers in elementary school telling me that when they
were growing up, left handedness was bullied out of them
by adults who thought that there was something wrong with it.
I don't know if it was a religious thing or
just a sort of cultural uh you know, No, you
need to suck it up and learn to use your
right hand like you're supposed to. I'm not sure what
that was, but Darren Darren has a story along those
(15:02):
same lines. So Darren says, Hi, gents, I've listened for years,
but the latest Listener Mail episode really spoke to me.
Back in nineteen eighty one, growing up in South Yorkshire, England,
our class teacher of German descent told us stories of
him having his left hand tied closed as a child.
He told us this almost apologetically, as he was aware
(15:25):
his now right handed writing was sometimes difficult to read. Ironically,
then at school there would be an incident only a
few weeks later, where we were in the dinner hall
having school lunch, the head mistress singled me out for
having my knife in my left hand. She berated me,
saying that I needed to eat right handed, and I
(15:45):
tried but couldn't. Embarrassed to the point where I took
a stand as a nine year old, I walked out
of school, the head mistress furious at me, and my
classmates cheering all the way back home. Yes, walking from
school was a thing. My parents at first were annoyed
I was home early, but when I explained why, my
dad went down to the school, and let's just say that,
(16:05):
he made it clear that I'd continue using my knife
with my left hand. I tell my daughter this story
and she is amazed that this was only really a
generation ago. Thank you for hopefully taking time to consider
this email, and thanks for continuing to blow mine in
my daughter's minds. Kind regards, Darren. Yeah, I mean, it's
that's it's crazy that that sort of thing took place.
(16:27):
I mean, if them now, it seems crazy, and I
don't know, it's hard to imagine at the time how
that would have how that was was was allowed. I
don't know, it's just crazy to think about. Okay, I'm
getting more convinced that maybe we should do this as
an episode and look into like, why is it that
they were doing. I mean, was it just the idea that, well,
a lot of things are designed for right handed people
(16:49):
and it will be easier if kids learned how to
use the right hands for things. Or is it more
like a I don't know, superstitious religious thing where it's
like the left hand is the hand of the devil. Yeah,
I remember there being at least a little bit of
that mixed in. Yeah, it's been a while since I
looked at it, so yeah, we should we shoul think
about coming back to this as a topic. Al Right,
(17:14):
here's another one. This one comes to us uh from Maybe,
and it is about spoons once more. Dear Robert and Joe,
I just finished listening to your excellent spoon episodes. Regarding
the fancy silvil ware that never gets used, I have
a story. My mother hated silver ware because polishing the
silver had been one of her household chores when she
(17:35):
was young. However, she and my father were rather badly
off financially for many years, so they used sterling silverware
because they couldn't afford to buy a set of stainless flatware.
The silverware had been a wedding gift. When I was
about ten. They bought stainless and we never used the
silver again, not even for holidays. It just amuses me
that the stainless flatlet where was the aspirational purchase, given
(17:57):
how expensive real silverware is. They gave me a nice
set of stainless steel flatware when I got married. Also,
I submit that sports are the perfect utensil for baked
potatoes and for mango has. Thanks for all the great content, Mayve,
rob do I need to stop you from exploding with
invective against may Have for defending the use of sports. Um,
(18:21):
I mean, I guess if if they want to use them, fine,
but I would argue, I mean of spoon works perfectly
fine out a baked potato. I don't know why anybody
needs a fork to get in there. And uh, mango has,
I guess mango. The thing about mango, I will admit
is it does tend to be a bit slippery. Um So,
(18:44):
I guess that is that is where one might insist
upon having some some prongs on your utensil. Um So,
I've certainly never used a sport to eat them, maybe trying.
I think I've just used a spoon to eat mango
that has been like properly cut up in all, but
I don't know. It's rare I get my hands on
a mango in this household because my son eats them all.
(19:05):
I didn't include the full message, but we did also
get a piece of email from somebody who wanted to
talk about grapefruit spoons. Yes, now that I will, I
will argue strongly that a grapefruit spapoon is not a spork.
But I I do believe in grape fruit spoons. I
think they are They're very handy. I prefer to use
one when I eat a grape fruit, though I was once.
(19:25):
This was when we were, you know, more properly. I
guess when we were how stuff works. I remember eating
a grape fruit with a grapefruit spoon, and there's somebody else,
like they worked in the office, and they they began
they were getting on my case saying, no, the grape
fruit spoon is not the way to go. You need
a grape fruit knife. You need a special knife for
(19:46):
eating your grape fruit. That is the only way to
eat them the spoon is malarkey? Is this strickland? No?
I don't remember who this individual was. They weren't like
in our department. I think they were more of a
technical role in the cup. But it was one of
those where like they were coming on kind of strong,
and I think I kind of like backed out of
the room with my grape fruit and spoon. I mean,
(20:08):
maybe the argument was like, this is a better way
to eat your grapefruit at your computer, because certainly, like
when you eat a grape fruit, when I eat a
grape fruit with a grape fruit spoon, it still makes
kind of a mess, like you're gonna get some sprays
of citrus. So maybe the knife cuts down on that
to a certain extent. I don't know, but you know,
that was back in the glorious time when we had cubicles,
(20:29):
and those cubicle walls could protect your next door neighbors
from the citrus spray. That's right. At least it's only
you and your stuff that are getting doused in citrus
juice in you in your dink cave of bones. And
we remember you had some really weird decorations when I
first moved in. Well, you know, stuff kind of accumulated. No,
I mean it was good. I was like, I could
see your desk and I was like, that's good people. Okay,
(20:57):
This next message comes to us from Paul. It is
about sun dogs and halos. Paul says, Hi, Robin Joe
just had to throw this link your way regarding halos
and sundogs. One of the most impressive I've ever seen.
Thanks for the great comment. And then Paul attaches a
link to an Astronomy Picture of the Day UH entry.
A p o D is a thing that NASA does
(21:18):
where they collect cool photographs of natural phenomenon and photographs
from space and stuff. This one was by a photographer
named Let's see Magnus ed Back and it's from the
twenty one December two thousand eighteen if you want to
look it up. The caption UH title was extraordinary solar
(21:39):
halos and this one is fantastic. The caption explanations says
quote captured at lunchtime on a cold December fourteenth near
Ute and Doll, Sweden. The image includes the relatively ordinary
twenty two degree halo, sun dogs or par helia, and
sun pillars, the extensive array of rarer halo those has
(22:00):
been identified, along with previously unknown features. All the patterns
are generated as sunlight or moonlight is reflected and refracted
in flat six sided water ice crystals in Earth's atmosphere.
In this case, likely local contributors to the atmospheric ice
crystals are snow making machines operating at a nearby ski center.
(22:20):
That's interesting, but the yeah, this picture is worth looking up.
It is gorgeous and it looks almost like the Earth
is plummeting down a tunnel made of sun's. Yeah, this
is impressive. It looks I'm it kind of seems like
a cosmic church window to me, or indeed like some
sort of angelic visitation. It almost has like the makings
(22:41):
of some sort of inhuman face. It's this is gorgeous,
But that's hilarious that this may well be aided by
the utter artificiality of a snow making machine. It is
angered the gods. Alright, for this next one, if you're
(23:04):
listening on a device that has a way to speed
up things, uh, speed up our voices. Go ahead and
speed us up to about three eggs because it will
be appropriate. This one comes to us from Jesse, Dear
Robert and Joe. On the most recent listener Mail episode one,
someone wrote in mentioning that they listen to podcast up
to three times speed. Robert, you mentioned that while you
(23:26):
were listening to sped up audio, you feel like your
mind speeds up to keep pace, and you find it unsettling. Joe,
you notice that it affects the way you perceive the
speed which someone is speaking in regular conversation. I too,
have sped up podcast to get through backlogs. I noticed
that when I listened to podcasts at a higher speed,
I feel increased stresses. My mind has to work harder
(23:47):
and pay closer attention so I don't miss anything. But
more than that, if I listen at increased speeds for
a few days or more, I feel like it starts
to affect my own speech. I notice I tend to
speak more quickly, which means my mind can't always keep
up and I end up tripping over my words. Another
thing I've noticed is when I slowed down a conversational
podcasts such as Stuff to Bow Your Mind to around
(24:09):
point eight times, it has a subtle relaxing effect. This
intuitively makes sense. I don't notice it's slowing down my speech,
but I suspect this is because I do this exclusively
for podcasts that I put on to help me get
to sleep. This is not when I do most of
my podcast listening, so perhaps it doesn't have to have
as much of a chance to mess with my head
(24:30):
as it would during the day. One last thing, As
other listeners have admitted, I too have listened to stuff
to bow your mind to get me to sleep when
it is your turn. Though it is a vault episode
that I turned to that way, I don't feel like
I am missing out on anything. Please know that you're
not boring, just common, relaxing, stay brilliant, Jesse. Oh thanks Jesse.
(24:51):
Oh my god, I can't imagine listening to us at
zero point eight speed. Yeah, that sounds so drunk, just hammer. Yeah,
if you if you heard me laughing a little bit
or through my reading of that, it's it's uh not
not because there's I'm I'm I'm judging Jesse for doing this,
but I'm just imagining that if I did that, it
(25:12):
would be kind of like nightmare juice, because I have
like literally had nightmares in which voices are slowed down.
So it's not something I really I really like, but
I could second see where it could be relaxing for
someone else. I mean, you and I both have Tennessee
speech anyway, which is already on the slower side of
accent pace, and oh man, that that would be rough.
(25:34):
But anyway, it's interesting to hear to hear from everyone,
you know, just there's so many nuances to how people
listen to podcasts that it's always interesting to pick up
on what the trends are. And I guess it what
used to be not as easy to do this, right?
I mean when did iPhones and so forth start getting
that that speed up slow down option? Oh I don't know.
(25:54):
I feel like that's apt dependent for me. It depends
on what I used to listen Google podcast, So we'll
let you pick pretty much any speed you want. Yeah,
but of course they're also like trying to shame you
and to listen to everything. I noticed, like when I
use it and it's like I go to a podcast
I haven't listened to in a few days and it's like,
have you given up on this podcast? You still want
to be subscribed at all? And I'm like, yes, I
(26:16):
just wasn't in the car for a few days. I said,
don't want to keep up with it. Don't make me
feel bad just because I just because I'm like, you know,
a few dozen episodes behind. I'm gonna get to it.
But seriously, we love you Apple. Okay, let's go on
to our next one. What do we have for us here, Joe? Okay, now,
(26:38):
we got some messages about Weird House Cinema. All right,
some very substantive messages about Weird House. So we'll say
this first one comes from John. John says, Hi, Robert
and Joe. I just listen to your Weird House Cinema
episode on Hands of Steel, and I enjoyed it a lot.
I actually passed through Page, Arizona last week and after
leaving town, walked on the Navajo footbridge where the finale
(27:01):
took place. It's a great but vertigo inducing view of
the Colorado River before the canyon really widens out. I'm
also writing because I noticed a funny connection between the
movie and it's real world setting. Although I can't speak
for acid rain. Remember in the movie, there was a
there was like a stationary acid rain hazard. There's like
a sign on the highway there's like warning you're about
(27:23):
to drive through acid rain, which is pretty great. Um,
uh sorry, John goes on. Although I can't speak for
acid rain, the state of Arizona does have an ongoing
history of water and land pollution from mining, including groundwater
pollution by the acid waste of copper mines. Southern Arizona
has a high concentration of large open pit copper mines,
(27:45):
and in order to extract the copper from or strong
acid solutions are often used, along with other toxic chemicals.
These waste products can leach into the surrounding environment, including
into groundwater, endangering surrounding communities. A good resource on this
is the book Boom Bust Boom, who's author Bill Carter,
recalls being poisoned by the vegetables in his own garden
(28:08):
in Bisbee, Arizona, a mining town, and learning that his
house was built on the arsenic and lead lace tailings
from a nearby copper mine. Wow and John attached some photos,
one an aerial photo and one from the ground level
of one of these open pit copper mines that has
been partially filled in. It is a It is a
truly dystopic site. Looks kind of like a like a
(28:31):
colosseum for earth elementals. Though I guess if you're an
earth elemental. I'm not sure what kind of animals they
would throw you too, maybe like some kind of rock
dissolving fungus or something. I don't know. Well, we'll come
back to that idea, um. But then John goes on.
I briefly lived in Aho, Arizona, which has its own
open pit copper mine. The now retired pit still has
(28:52):
a turquoise and toxic pool at the bottom, and the
tailings pile from the mine dominates the landscape images attached
to both though that's what these images are, Okay. While there,
I was told that the tap water had more arsenic
than would be ideal, but I can't say whether this
was from the mind or some other environmental factor. It
was fun to see a connection between the film's vision
(29:14):
of dystopian environmental degradation and the stuff that goes on
in the real world. Sometimes American truth is stranger than
Italian fiction. For a future weird house cinema, could I
suggest Altered States. Given that the podcast has discussed Timothy
Leary and Terence McKenna at length, this movie might be appropriate.
It seems like the writers did some brief reading about
(29:35):
traditional uses of psychedelic mushrooms and sensory deprivation, did mushrooms themselves,
and then wrote a script. Thanks for all the fun
and interesting conversations, Best John with Altered States? Am I
wrong in thinking that was written by Patty Chaievsky the
same person who wrote Network? Uh that sounds familiar? Yes, yes,
that is correct. U. Yeah, so it has an interesting writer.
(29:59):
And then of course it's a kin Russell film. Um So,
I mean I feel like we probably do need to
take on a kin Russell film at some point. I
assume you've seen Altered States, right, I have? I have.
It's been a long time since I watched it in
its entirety. Uh so it would it would totally be
a different experience watching it now, but uh, it could
be a pretty fun one. It's got some neat connections
(30:19):
in it. John Lara Catt, isn't it as an X
ray technician? Oh? That's funny. Uh So My main memory
of it is that William Hurt is the main character. Yeah,
and he plays a I don't know, Timothy Leary type
some a A an academic who becomes interested in the
use of psychedelics and in sensory deprivation tanks. And he
starts to discover that as he like does more and
(30:42):
more sensory deprivation, he like regresses to some kind of
pre previous state of existence, and which is an interesting idea,
but I think it sort of ends up with him
just like turning into a werewolf. Yeah, he's sence some
sort of like caveman monster mode towards the end, as
I recall. But in an interesting coincidence, this next piece
(31:06):
of listener mail also concerned sensory deprivation. Alright, this one
comes to us from Dan. Dan rights to Robert and Joe.
I made the unfortunate mistake of watching the Janet um
Agrin video of Teddy Bear that Robert posted on his
Commuta Music blog, and now I am trapped in the
hell Raiser Laborath dimentioned, just as Joe had warned, I
should have listened. While the pain and anguish has been
(31:28):
unbearable and my suffering soon to be legendary. My cinebye
masters have permitted me to send you this listener mail.
By the way, they're big fancy show. Earlier this week,
I was going through the show's archive and listened to
the Creepy Pasta Experiments episode that Robert did with Christian
and this episode you discussed one creepy pasta about a
Russian sleep experiment that descended into violence and madness and
(31:49):
related it to your own experiences with sensory deprivation and
isolation tanks. It made me think about how the last
twelve months since the covid vandemic forced me to start
remotely working from home, that in order to get through
my day I need to listen to a lot of
podcasts to keep me focused on my job. Ironically, if
I don't have some kind of auditory stimuli, I lose concentration,
focus and find I cannot function in a complete, in
(32:12):
complete silence. Perhaps this is related to how I used
to work in a very noisy office with a lot
of phones ringing, people talking, laughing at various machines going off,
and I need to replicate the illusion of being in
the company of a lot of people to maintain some
sense of normalcy. I wonder if you've had similar experiences
since transitioning to your home offices. Apologies for the lengthy email,
(32:33):
but I must now be going CD rom Centebyte is
calling such sites to show me. Keep up the great work,
Dan Well I'm so glad. Dan remembers there is a
c D cinemyte c D cinembyte shows up in the
third one that's in that weird club. Yeah, I think
he's a what is He's like several ideas kind of
slammed together, right, he's us. I think bartender and a
(32:55):
DJ and like a c D face. Um. At times
we may have to do uh how Raiser three Hell
on Earth at some point because it is kind of
like the Gremlins too of Hell Raiser films, you know, um,
or every everybody at the writing table gets to design
their own cinemabyte for the movie. That movie is just
(33:16):
a ladle full of vegetable shortening. It is gross. Okay,
what was I gonna say? Oh? Yeah, well this is
an interesting idea, Dan. Yeah. I sometimes find that certain
types of music and noise can help me focus on tasks,
but not any kind of music or noise, And I
(33:37):
don't know, I guess it depends on what kind of
work I'm doing. But yeah, there can certainly be a
thing I think for some people where it can be
harder to focus if you have less stimulation, because if
you have less stimulation, you're more likely to let your
mind start to wander, you know, people who are prone
to rumination, and then you get distracted by your thoughts. Yeah,
(33:58):
I mean I I can't take silence at all. Like
I'll I'll be listening to Deepeche Mode and they're like,
enjoy the silence, and I'm like, no, That's why I
put you on depeche Mode. So I don't have to
hear the silence. Now, just keep singing, so I don't
think too hard, uh for something that effect. I don't know,
you know, it varies. There's different depending on where I
am during the day. I might need something more ambient
(34:21):
or or or something a little more um complicated. But
then also it's like we live in such an area
that I'm setting out on the front porch working like
I don't really need any music. There's plenty of noises
going on, like they're multiple trains going by, there's traffic,
their dogs, their lawnmowers. There's plenty of of auditory stimuli.
(34:41):
Uh to keep me on task. You know. I gotta
say one of my all time now productivity albums is
an album that I never heard until you shared it
with me. It's Biosphere The Petrified Forest. Oh, Yeah, that
was so good. I put that one onto work all
the time. I mean all the time. That's a that's
a good one. Yeah. Yeah, uh, you can't beat Biosphere.
(35:02):
Play play a lot of Biosphere. Also play a lot
of Steve Roach. Um. Yeah, listeners out there, let us know,
do you have particular ambient or even not so ambient
tracks or artists that you turn to, uh to to work,
either during the pandemic or you know, just in general.
Let us know. We're always always looking for listening suggestions. Oh.
Another good one that I've been listening too lately to
(35:23):
work is cluster Zucker site. Yeah. Oh that's good. Yeah, older,
older stuff, but but great, still stands the test of time. Okay,
one last message here. This comes to us from Kenny.
Kenny says, Dear Robert and Joe High there from Scotland.
(35:43):
I'm a longtime listener who, like many others, enjoys your
podcasts in the evenings, often letting them play as my
wife and I go to sleep. This leads to some
very confusing blended episodes, as we fall asleep to a
discussion about Jovian moons and wake up in the night
to a debate about ancient fungus. I recently listen to
Your Weird House Cinema episode about Ewoks the Battle for Indoor,
(36:04):
and Joe made an observation that the gas giant around
which Indoor orbits being depicted on the horizon as absolutely enormous,
apparently taking up half the sky. The point was accurately
made that even from the vantage point of an observer
on Io, Jupiter's innermost moon, the gas giant would only
appear to be a fraction of the size of Tanna
(36:25):
indoors planet, and that this was done for dramatic effect
rather than accuracy. However, this got me thinking about how
our own moon appears when it is high in the
sky compared to how it does when it's on the horizon.
The Moon obviously doesn't change size, but it often appears
to us as if it does. As far as I'm aware,
The mechanism by which this occurs is not fully understood,
(36:48):
but this is referred to as the moon illusion and
as puzzled observer since antiquity. It is now commonly accepted
to be a psychological rather than a physical phenomenon. The
Moon obviously doesn't change size, but it fools us into
thinking that it does. This effect seems to have something
to do with context. When the moon is high in
the sky and there's nothing around it to give its
(37:09):
scale and help us judge distance, we see it as
relatively small because our brains interpret it as being very
far away. When it is on the horizon. However, the
moon often appears to be much larger, and it may
be that when there are other objects in our field
of view, this tricks our brain into perceiving the Moon
is significantly closer. Perhaps an observer on io would perceive
(37:30):
Jupiter to be truly vast as it rises and sets,
but smaller and ever so slightly less intimidating when it
was higher in the sky, That is, if they lasted
long enough to perceive anything at all before they succumbed
to their radiation. Bath yours, Kenny, And of course if
the moon is to the left, it's a part of
your thoughts, right yeah, And a part of my thoughts
is a part of me? Is me? Uh well? Uh so, Kenny,
(37:55):
raise some wonderful points here, uh this that I will
just jump in real quick. This has nothing to do
with their content, but they mentioned the indoor movies. Battle
for Indoor the e Walks movies. If if you out
there listening are not aware, these are finally coming to
Disney Plus, uh next month. I'm very excited by this
because when we recorded that episode on the Battle for Indoor,
(38:17):
one of the things we stressed was you sadly have
to go to like Russian YouTube to watch these things
right now, or you know, pick up a used DVD.
But soon that that that battle will be over. These
will be available on Disney Plus along with the the
excellent uh Tartarkovski Clone Wars series, So I'm excited for that.
Oh and the animated segment from the Holiday Special with
(38:40):
Boba Fette in it, but not the whole Holiday special,
right that couldn't know? I mean, I think it just
could not be allowed. It needs to remain in its prison.
That's where the gods put it. This is a good choice. Yeah,
so they're uploading the e walk So now are we
going to be able to get the Wicked the Ewalk
manson Family Eyes in four? Yeah? Yeah, hopefully so. I
(39:02):
haven't heard anything about them restore it doing any kind
of restoration on it, are certainly adding any effects to it,
so I'm guessing it'll be in It's in all its glory.
Now one wonders on the on the question of um
of possible cursing in the film, if Wilford Brimley actually
did anything like cursing, which has been an argument that's
(39:23):
been made. I wonder if they're going to go in
and remove anything. I wonder if they're gonna make any changes.
Be interested to find out if they take out Wilford
Brimley saying the F word, that is that is censorship
that will not be tolerated. Um Allegedly. We don't know
that for sure that he seasoned Afford, but some have
made that that case. If they take out the Brimley Ffford,
(39:43):
this is stall in a Strussia absolutely unacceptable. Well we
we shall see, we shall see. All right, Well, we're
gonna go ahead and close the book on everything right here.
But this has been your weekly listener mail episode. Uh so, yeah,
right in. Let us know, do you have responses to
what we talked about in this episode? You have responses
(40:04):
to our core stuff to blow your mind episodes or
two Weird House Cinema. Let us know we'd love to
hear from you. We don't have time to read everything
in these episodes, but we do read everything that comes in.
If you would like to follow our podcast, check out
the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed wherever you
find that. Just make sure you rate, review, and subscribe,
(40:25):
and don't don't let whatever whatever you're listening platform is,
you know, don't let them try and shame you. Don't
let them give you a hard time about skipping an
episode or we're having to catch up, or and certainly
listen at any speed that your brain can bear. Huge things.
As always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
(40:47):
a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is
a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
(41:07):
listen to your favorite shows
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