STBYM Listener Mail: All Reason Departs

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

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Episode Transcript

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

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

Speaker 3 (00:14):
And I am Joe McCormick, and today we're going to
be reading back some messages that came into the Stuff
to Blow Your Mind email address. If you have never
gotten in touch before, this is a great time to
try it. You can email us at contact at Stuff
to Blow your Mind dot com. Whatever kind of message
you want to send is fair game. We always appreciate
if you have something interesting to add to a topic

(00:36):
we've talked about on the show. If you want to
suggest something you would like us to talk about in
the future, if you want to suggest a movie for
Weird House Cinema, general feedback of course, factual corrections if
that ever comes up. Whatever you want, it's all fair game.
Contact at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Rob
you just got in off the road, anything anything to

(00:57):
report from wherever you went?

Speaker 2 (00:59):
Oh yeah, yeah, the family and I just traveled to
Denver and back. So first time in Denver. Got to
experience some of the great outdoors there, some of the
offerings in the city itself, you know, went to miow Wolf,
went to their excellent art museum, went to the excellent
science museum. Actually got several really good ideas for the

(01:20):
show from their science museum. So stay tuned for the
future on that one.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
Okay, do you want to kick things off with some
of these messages in response to the Star Wars.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Series, Let's do it. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:33):
Okay. This first message is from Kenna. It's in response
to our discussion from Star Wars Week about the planet Hawth. Now,
in that episode, we did an extended segment, among other things,
about the infamous ton Toon sleeping bag scene from the
Empire Strikes Back. So in this scene, Han Solo cuts

(01:53):
open the body of this animal called a ton Toon
in the movie. It's a fictional creature in the Star
Wars universe. It looks kind of like a part goat,
part theropod dinosaur, and he cuts it open in the
belly so that he can cram an unconscious Luke Skywalker
inside the animal to protect Luke from freezing to death.
And in the episode we talked about whether this would

(02:16):
work in reality and about some real life cases of
people crawling inside dead animals to try and survive. The cold,
it has been done. This first message is from Kenna.
Subject horses are wet. Kenna says, Hi, Robert, Joe and

(02:38):
JJ love the show and have unusual life experience to
share with you. It may, however, be too gross, so
apologies in advance to whoever's turn it is to skim
the mailbag. Yeah, so warning folks has some animal gutting
details to follow. If you can't stand that, maybe skip
ahead a few minutes.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
All right, the folks who couldn't handle it have left
the room. Continue.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
I am a veterinary pathologist's assistant, meaning that dead cows
and horses are my job. I think I know why
the hapless hunters in Idaho could not fully hide within
their horses the ribs and now this refers back to
one of the real life cases of hiding inside an animal.
We talked about the couple of hunters who got lost

(03:21):
while out hunting in Idaho. They were trapped in a blizzard.
They got soaking wet, so they survived by killing their horses,
cutting them open, and crawling the inside. But one part
of the story is one of the guys who had
this experience described it there being a lot less room
inside the horse than they expected. I think they first
thought that they could get two guys inside one horse,

(03:43):
and you couldn't even get one hole guy in there.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
Yeah, and horses are huge animals, obviously, and especially when
you're around a big one, you might well think, oh, yeah, yeah,
this room for two in there. There's room for two
on top.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
But no, it couldn't even get the whole one regular
sized guy in there. Legs were sticking out, which yeah,
sounds unpleasant in multiple ways. But anyway, so now Kenna
has an answer for us. The ribs could be a
problem here. Kenna says, see, in my experience, the easiest
way to remove the organs of any animal for inspection

(04:17):
is to remove the back leg, open the abdomen, and
remove the digestive tract. This takes us upwards of thirty
minutes because we have to look for anomalies, so probably
much less time. If you are desperate, you can do
it with no tools but a knife, and you could
keep the leg on if all you cared about was
the warm body cavity. However, you need tools such as

(04:39):
a saw or a really long pair of hedge tremors
to open the ribs. It is very hard to remove
the lungs of any animal without getting through those best
case scenario, you can slowly get pieces of them out
through the diaphragm, but the inside of a horse's rib
cage is generally not very roomy and may not be
worth the effort. Cows, especially dairy cows or mature breeding females,

(05:04):
have very widely set ribs. I am five four and chubby,
but by experience I can get most of me in
there to take samples. And if you have a buddy
to help you turn the turn the body over, you
could get a large flap of leather to cover whatever
sticks out. Wow, cows. Cows do tend to be wetter

(05:26):
than horses, however, because of all the roomen. Oh, I
guess that's the that's the fermentation stomach, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
Finally, Kenna says, I recommend a shovel to make a long,
gross story very short. If you must be ton toon wrapped,
the cow is probably better than a horse. Thanks for
years of things I can talk about at work, Kenna.

Speaker 2 (05:49):
All right, well, this is again, as I said before,
this is exactly the sort of real world field reportings
that we love to see on stuff to blow your mind, listener, male.

Speaker 3 (06:00):
Absolutely. I mean most of what we talk about on
the show is just stuff that we learn about by
reading about it. So anybody who has life experience that
can inform, you know, from your work or from your
personal life, whatever it is that can inform the subjects
we've talked about, we love to get that kind of feedback.

Speaker 2 (06:16):
Yeah, I know we're returning to a subject that we've
talked about at least this is like the third time now,
because it's a good camp on a previous listener mail
as well, I believe. But on one hand, it seems
like there should be a country western song about this, yeah,
or it should be just a common feature you know,
that will at least come up in passing. And then
this leads me back to something else that I've mentioned before,

(06:37):
and that is that episode of The X Files where
there's an invisible elephant. If memory serves, there is a
scene where there is an autopsy performed, or a necropsy
rather on an elephant, and I think like Moulder and
Scully are both standing inside the elephant, or maybe just
one of them.

Speaker 3 (06:56):
You know, I don't remember. I did see that episode
on my ex files journey, but I don't remember that scene.

Speaker 2 (07:03):
Yeah, you had episode that's the worst of the X
Files just about so.

Speaker 3 (07:09):
I think it's not just an elephant if I remember right,
it's like a whole zoo of invisible animals.

Speaker 2 (07:13):
Oh wow, yeah, oh how could that not be great?
The whole zoo. And it's not one of the top episodes.
M hmm, it's one of the few. The backstory here,
as I've mentioned before, as a as a when I
was a young person catching the X Files, X Files
and television, I only caught like two episodes. This was
before you could you know, the DVR stuff and so forth,

(07:35):
So it was just like, when can I catch it
on you know, whatever episode is being served up to
me by fate. I saw the up maybe I saw
three episodes. I remember seeing episode about the dude in
the toilet, and then about the dude toilet the toilet monster,
and then the dude who's stretchy and comes up through
the toilet. I think they both are toilet.

Speaker 3 (07:54):
I thought, I'm thinking of the same thing. Well maybe
then I don't know who the dude in the toilet is.

Speaker 2 (07:58):
The creature in the port of like at the bottom
of the toilet.

Speaker 3 (08:01):
Oh oh oh, I see, yes there is. You're the
Flukeman and I think Tombs two different creatures who both
come through sewage plumbing.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
Up through the toilet. Okay, yeah, but then.

Speaker 3 (08:14):
There's Flukeman is the more direct toilet monster.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (08:18):
The Tombs is just stretchy and he goes all all
kinds of.

Speaker 2 (08:21):
Places, including toilet. Yeah, but there's no toilet in the
Zoo Animal. And I and as I remember the Zoo
Animal episode, the Invisible Elephant Elephant episode is the last
one I saw, and that one kind of maybe made
me push pause in catching X Files episodes.

Speaker 3 (08:37):
Oh man, I need to go. File says it's there's
such a range. The best episodes are like the best
TV ever made, and the worst episodes are some of
the worst. It's really incredible. Okay, do you want to
pick the next one to read? You take your pick,
go go with whatever you like.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
All right, let's see. Well, there's more Tonton material here
we could Uh yeah, there's one from Annel here titled
ton Ton Montana, and Daniel says, hi, fellas are e
your recent discussion of the Tonton Sleeping Bag and the
Lost Hunters. I wanted to bring up Jack London's nineteen
oh eight short story to Build a Fire, firstly because

(09:16):
it had a lot in common with the story of
the Hunters, except with a dog instead of a horse
and a very different ending for both men and animal,
but also because it contains this sentence quote he remembered
the story of the man caught in a storm who
killed an animal and sheltered himself inside the dead body
and thus was saved. I think it was possible that
they were inspired by a similar sort of folk tale

(09:38):
or the short story itself and later the Tontan or
it all might have been mixed into the story and
potentially their memories by the sort of Well, it would
just make sense logic that memory often relies on thanks
and love from Daniel.

Speaker 3 (09:52):
Thank you so much, Daniel. Yeah, this came up because
the guys who were the hunters who got lost and
ended up crawling inside their horses. In one retelling of
the story, they actually mentioned that they got this idea
from talking about the Empire strikes back, so they had
Tonton consciousness when they got in those horses. But it's

(10:14):
entirely possible they could have been inspired by I don't
know earlier stories like this. I wasn't aware of this.
I think I've read this story before, but it's been
so long I don't remember this detail at all.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
Same I read this so long ago, and I remember
I remember more of the stuff that had to do
with just like the challenges of building a fire. I
should go back and read my Jack London again, because
he wrote some pretty great tales and dabbled in some
sci fi. I don't know that I've ever read any
of his science fiction. But it's not all dogs and survivalism.

Speaker 3 (10:45):
Well, he wrote kind of a dystopian political novel, didn't
He sort of a prefiguring an idea of sort of
future fascism.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
Okay, yeah, I haven't read that one. I've only read
the ones they would assign you in school, which were great.
But yeah, it's been a long time.

Speaker 3 (11:02):
I haven't read this book either, so I don't know
for sure. I just have read about it. I think
it's it's called something like The Iron Heel or something,
so can't vouch for it. Haven't read it, but yeah,
be worth interesting checking out what kind of ideas he
had about that.

Speaker 2 (11:16):
Yeah, or even in to build a Fire? How did
they climb how does the guy climb inside a dog
where it is you know, too dark to read quite true?

Speaker 3 (11:25):
And maybe I'm missing some of the implications there.

Speaker 2 (11:27):
Maybe like they put feet inside the dog. I mean
basically you could use even a large dog only for
you know, as a handwarm or something.

Speaker 3 (11:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:36):
Yeah, we'll have to go back and reread it.

Speaker 3 (11:38):
All right, I'm going to read this next message from Scott,
subject line Contradictions in the Syth. This is about the
other topic we covered on Star Wars Week, where we
looked into the Sith rule of two and general Sith
psychology questions, questions about power and succession within the Sith order,
of which there are usually only two participants at any

(12:01):
given time, and the contradictions that arise from that. So
we're getting some more contradictions on that subject from Scott.
Scott says, Hi, Robert and Joe, your recent explorations of
Sith's psychology reminded me of a long standing puzzle I've
had with this order. The rule of two summarizes the

(12:24):
master apprentice relationship, which persists even as roles change and
individual Sith come and go, as a very long term
strategy for undermining the Jedi through the dark side of
the force. The theory behind this is that, since the
Sith work through harnessing anger, any larger group tends to
splinter into internal descent and infighting, which is just barely

(12:48):
controlled in a two person relationship. Maybe two is plenty
three is a crowd when it comes to sith. What's
the original two's company? Yeah, so two is just barely
not too much, Scott says. The problem I see with
this is that whether this rule of two is a

(13:09):
conscious plan or simply evolved after other strategies failed, it
can't be a plan on behalf of anybody, for by definition,
there are no other Sith or other peoples to do
it on behalf of, Nor can it actually serve each
sith lord's own personal goals, even if each of the

(13:30):
two Sith imagines that they will somehow be an exception
to the generalization that they will eventually be overthrown by
the apprentice. Their apprentice, in turn, a sober view of
the history of their order would suggest that this is unlikely,
so that in practice, each Sith is on a kind
of suicide mission. But while most suicide attackers act in

(13:52):
defense of a larger group who are or are imagined
to have been treated unjustly, and who it is hoped,
will have have better lives. After the individual self sacrifice,
the Sith act on behalf of nobody, either in reality
or in their own self understanding. Indeed, the very idea
of a Sith lord is a contradiction in terms, because

(14:14):
they are not usually a lord of anything significant, at
most a single apprentice, and the apprentice over no one else.
In other words, while the Sith purport to extol the
self and individual desire and anger, in fact they sacrifice
everything personal in the name of an abstract principle. They

(14:36):
accept their role and almost certain death, simply to spite
the Jedi. This may exemplify the master and slave dialectic
described by the German philosopher Hegel. The master seeks to
dominate the slave, but this means that the master defines
himself and his value in terms of the slave, and

(14:56):
in a sense exists as a master for and in
vertuble you of having a slave. So if the ultimate
plan of the Sith is to destroy the Jedi, dominating
them and enslaving the rest of the universe, then the
Sith only value themselves in terms of this conquest and domination,
rather than to serve their personal desires. This doesn't necessarily

(15:18):
mean that Lucas's vision of the Sith is inconsistent. For
perhaps it simply means that the Sith philosophy is inconsistent,
and that the Sith themselves don't and perhaps can't, truly
understand what scythism is and what they are doing. They
are lords only in their imagination, and they are actually
slaves to the abstract principle of hatred. Rather than being selfish,

(15:43):
Scythism is more like a virus, or, as Joe suggested
at the end of your last episode, a kind of parasite.
It only superficially purports to promote the self, but actually
is the most self renouncing philosophy possible. It tricks the
individual Sith promise to fulfill their personal desires, only to
both frustrate these goals and ultimately erase them, replacing them

(16:07):
with the impersonal goal of the Sith order. This is
self destructive in the deepest possible way, not because it
will inevitably be defeated by good, but because even if,
and insofar as it succeeds in attaining its goal, it
has defined itself in terms of this singular goal, before
which everything else, and in particular are all personal and

(16:29):
selfish goals, must be sacrificed. Palpatine ultimately has hollowed himself
out of all desires except to destroy the Jedi and
stay in power to keep them down. Anakin slash Vader
must lose his beloved Padme to become a Sith, and
only eventually rejects the Sith by caring once again about
something personal to him. His son Luke Scott. Well, that's

(16:55):
really interesting. Yeah, thanks a lot, Scott. I obviously you
know this can feel kind of silly because we're talking
about a fictional world with these fictional beings in it.
But obviously you know their behavior patterns are somewhat mirrored
by some people in the real world, so I think
there's some applicable philosophy and psychology to examine here. I

(17:17):
thought it was interesting that you brought in Hegel's Master
Slave Dialectic, which is also sometimes translated as the Lord
Bondsman dialectic or the master Servant dialectic. I'm not deeply
read on Hegel, so this is an idea I only
know about secondhand. You know, from reading other summaries, I
apologize if I'm failing to do this justice in some way.

(17:39):
But the interesting thing about it is that, so the
point of Hagel's argument is originally about like what shapes
the emergence of consciousness and independence and the self. So
originally it's kind of a descriptive thing about the world
and about how selves emerge. What this concept that he

(17:59):
calls self consciousness or that's usually translated from the German
to be self consciousness. But the way I understand it,
this dialectic also has sort of normative implications about why
domination of other people is not just morally wrong but
self destructive. So in this dialectic, Hegel argues that a

(18:20):
person can't really have a free and self sufficient identity
unless they are recognized by another free and self sufficient mind.
So our ability to be a free person and a
self sufficient person comes from being perceived and recognized as
a person by other free and self sufficient people. And

(18:43):
this creates this contradiction in human behavior because humans in
a desire to be free and self sufficient are sort
of driven into conflict with one another, and people often
end up thinking that they can become maximally self sufficient
and empowered by dominating other people. So I make other
people do what I want instead of what they want,

(19:05):
and that is liberating to me. It helps me enact
my will. But Hagel suggests that when you dominate another person,
you both define your identity in terms of that person
you're dominating. You believe yourself to be valuable because you
are victorious over them in some way, but you also
devalue them and make them unfree through your domination, So

(19:28):
your relationship with them is not real, like you're not
getting real recognition from them. It's only recognition by compulsion
and not mutual recognition among equals. So while it feels
like dominating a person could make you strong, it actually
makes you hollow and dependent and without self sufficiency.

Speaker 2 (19:50):
That's interesting. Yeah, And you know, certainly we can apply
that understanding to various real world contexts, but also reward
to apply it to this this fantasy scenario as well
of a master and apprentice engaged in a two person
secret order of darkness.

Speaker 3 (20:10):
Well, also, I mean the broader Sith goal being one
clearly of domination. Like the Sith is a domination oriented ideology.
It's all about what is best in life. It's crush
your enemies, see them driven before you hear the lamentation.
It's dominating people. And I'm not saying that I think
George Lucas had Hegel in mind or anything, but I

(20:30):
do think it's interesting that Scott brought this in because
it does bring me back to something we talked about
in the Star Wars episodes, and I think Scott alludes
to this in the email too, the fact that we
never really see the Sith Lords enjoying themselves or having
much of an identity or finding fulfillment in anything except

(20:51):
in the act of exerting power and inflicting cruelty. It
seems like that's the only thing they really like to do.
And I sort of mention in that in the in
the episode as a joke, like we never see the
Sith Lords having fun, uh, but I think there may
there might be something kind of interesting at work there,
Like it's not just morally wrong to be a Sith Lord,

(21:11):
of course it is. It is wrong to inflict cruelty
and domination over other people, but beyond the moral wrongness
of it, it also sucks like it leaves the Sith
lord with some without some core essence of self sufficiency
and identity.

Speaker 2 (21:28):
Yeah. Yeah, the end up being cold, hollow people and
in some cases arguably no longer completely people either, you know,
either they've become partially machine or they've become uh, you know,
some other in some other like very visible and metaphoric way,
their physical bodies have been transformed. And yeah, I think

(21:51):
it's it's it's it's telling uh. And then of course,
you know this idea that all they want is domination,
like that is the heart of the Sith. Though. One
of the great things that is Lord, especially in the prequels,
is the idea that this ascension, the ascension of the Sith,
it may be cloaked in all these other rationales, you know,
especially when you know, carrying down the Jedi order and

(22:12):
talking about everything that's wrong and corrupt about the Jedi,
but the Sith are not here to simply bring about
the end of corruption. That is that is maybe that's
how they mask their true ambitions, but it is not
their true ambition.

Speaker 3 (22:26):
The latter to sithhood is full of pretextual goals and motivations,
and then once you get to the top, all there
really is is domination. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
Yeah, so we we know that the Sith don't really
love much beyond domination. But we know, at least in
one case, there's one particular Sith who hates sand. So
let's go ahead and talk about some of our some

(22:56):
of the listener mails that came out of our sand episode.

Speaker 3 (22:59):
Okay, is it your turn? You want to take one?

Speaker 2 (23:02):
Yeah, let's see. Let me sift through the mail bag here,
so we have this one comes to us from Bill.
Bill says Robin Joe. Thanks, as always for the continuing
education on all things. I dwell in multiple deserts in
Utah in Arizona, and we have some extra fine sand
here that essentially has a much lower coefficient of friction,

(23:24):
resulting in fantastic sledding. I hear the sands of the
Sahara are similar because wind erosion tends to create more
spherical shape. With all the sand that I deal with
on a daily basis, my brain has a hard time
grasping a number equal to the grains in my sight
much less on the planet. But the email continues. AnyWho,

(23:46):
here is an interesting comparison that really quote bakes my noodle.
The comparison grains of sand on Earth. Researchers estimate these
are roughly seven point five plintillion grains of sand on
the planet. And then Rubik's cube combinations. A standard three
x three cube has roughly forty three quintillion possible states.

(24:09):
In short, there are nearly six times more ways to
scramble a Rubek's cube than there are grains of sand
on Earth. Take that sand, Okay, I mean we're dealing
with numbers so huge here, Yeah, we can we really
it's difficult to even make any sense of this, But

(24:30):
let's just say a lot in either category. But what
we're saying more Rubus cube combinations than grains of sand
on Earth.

Speaker 3 (24:39):
Well, I'd say one difference here is that we can
calculate exactly the real number of possible Rubic's cube states,
whereas we have to guess at the number of grains
of sand. We can only make sure informed estimate that's true.

Speaker 2 (24:53):
That's true, all right, And then there's a little bit
tacked on the end here. Ps. It is far too depraved, grotesque,
and ultimately eighties to recommend the following flick for the
general public. But Street Trash is a unique film from
nineteen eighty seven that may entertain one or both of
you I can't believe it has kept me laughing for

(25:13):
nearly forty years.

Speaker 3 (25:14):
Bill oh Bill, Street Trash has come up on the
show before. We've talked some Street Trash folks. I don't
want you to take this as a general recommendation to
go watch Street Trash. It is not for many people,
probably not for most. It is one of the weirdest,
most extreme melt movies out there. But yeah, yeah, we've

(25:36):
seen Street Trash.

Speaker 2 (25:37):
Yeah yeah, it's been a number of years for me.
But I greatly enjoyed Street Trash in the past, certainly
the last time I saw it, and it was a
film that I specifically remember being introduced to via a
very short lived series on Comedy Central. Back this would
have been I looked it up. This would have been
like ninety three or ninety four. It was called drive
in Reviews, based I believe out of Chicago, and there

(26:00):
were two hosts. It was Buzz Killman and Tony Fitzpatrick,
and they had kind of like a Ciskel and Ebert
set up, but they only talked about you know, gross
and you know, quote tasteless films, and they talked about
the quality kills. If you ever hear me say Quality
Kill on Weird House Cinema. That is a little homage

(26:21):
of mine to this show, because this is where I learned.
You know, I probably i'd seen a number of these
these movies on the video shelves at this point in
my life, but they were still introducing me to the
ones i'd never heard of. Like I think The Beyond
is a film that I saw profiled here for the
first time.

Speaker 3 (26:37):
Oh the Fulcy movie.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
Oh no, no, no, I'm sorry, not no, from Beyond Beyond. Yeah, yes, okay, yeah,
so yeah, they profiled a lot of like sci fi,
horror films, anything that had a certain amount of gore
or nastiness to it. I don't again, I don't think
it lasted very long, but it was introduced at a
time when I was watching any and everything that was

(27:00):
on Comedy Central.

Speaker 3 (27:02):
Yeah. I never saw this one. I just found out
now where quality Kill comes from. I felt like you
were quoting something but I'd never asked.

Speaker 2 (27:10):
Yeah, yeah, these two. I believe Fitzpatrick, I believe he
passed in recent years, but Buzz Buzz Kilman is still around.
I think he's like a Chicago radio guy. So yeah, anyway,
look it up. You can probably find these episodes on
YouTube or something.

Speaker 3 (27:25):
Okay, we got another response to our episode on sand.
This is from Tyrone. Tyrone says, maybe God is telling
me to listen to more podcasts. I never listened to podcasts.
I saw your podcast on Netflix yesterday May thirteenth, twenty
twenty six, and clicked play because the name of your

(27:48):
podcast was the perfect bait. We baited you.

Speaker 2 (27:53):
Yeah, Connell did it again with that one.

Speaker 3 (27:56):
For the first ten minutes, I could not believe I
was listening to a discussion about sand and had not
left the show. When that episode on sand ended, I
had learned a few amazing things, indeed about the strength
of sand. Fast forward to today, May fourteenth, twenty twenty six.
One day later, for no reason at all, I stopped
by an area library I never visited before, and in

(28:18):
their books for Sale section, I saw a Grain of
Sand by doctor Gary Greenberg, and all I can say
is it will blow your mind. The data and vivid
photos are jaw dropping. Best one dollar I have ever spent.
After reading it, you may be tempted to do a
Sand part two podcast. Good podcast eight out of ten
Good Day series. All right, Well, thank you so much.

(28:40):
I did look up this book after your recommendation. So
Gary Greenberg, he's got a website you can read about him.
He is originally a PhD biologist who it seems many
decades ago sort of switched to specializing in microscopy and microphotography.
So he has a lot of I think, like public

(29:00):
work and books and art and stuff that is just
like really close up photos of extremely tiny things, and
he does like three D light microscopy. So according to
his author bio, I thought this detail was good.

Speaker 2 (29:14):
Quote.

Speaker 3 (29:14):
His striking images of human pancreatic cancer cells were repurposed
as the surface of Krypton in the first Superman movie
in nineteen seventy eight movie. I couldn't find a shot
of what this was, so I'm gonna have to go
back and watch that movie and figure out what special
effects shot this is. But you may actually have seen before,
Like I looked at some of the pictures of grains

(29:37):
of sand that I think come from this book that
Tyrone recommended again that's called a Grain of Sand by
Gary Greenberg, and these pictures looked really familiar to me.
I feel like maybe I've seen these images on the
internet before, but they are extreme close ups of grains
of sand. And when you zoom in and see obviously

(29:58):
sand in different parts of the worldferent places has different constituents,
you know, different types of little fragments of of you know,
minerals make it up. But the in some sands you
get very interesting little bits of you know, organic remnants,
little shells and hard parts of creatures in the ocean.

Speaker 2 (30:17):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (30:18):
And that's what we've got a lot of in these
close ups here. It looks when zoomed in like this,
it looks a lot more like a handful of candies
than it does sand.

Speaker 2 (30:26):
It really does. Yeah, there are a few in particular
that looks like the sort of hard candies that you know,
your great aunt or uncle might have had in a
it congealed together in a jar in their dining room.

Speaker 3 (30:36):
Yeah. Yeah, I had a jar like that in my family,
not my house, an extended family house. I remember, the
hard candy jar.

Speaker 2 (30:44):
Yeah. Yeah, it definitely looks like that.

Speaker 3 (30:47):
Mostly to be looked at though. Yeah, but anyway, Yeah,
thanks again, Tyrone.

Speaker 2 (30:53):
All right, let's see what else we have here. This
next one, Yeah, this one comes from Taylor. This one
has to do with fulgarites. Examples of fulgarites in fantasy media.

Speaker 3 (31:07):
Yeah. Oh, and we talked about this in the sand episode,
because fulgarite is when it's this natural formation you get
when lightning hits sand and instantly melts it, forming this
hollow glass tube that will usually be smooth on the
inside and rough on the outside.

Speaker 2 (31:21):
So yeah, this is this you as we were discussing
in the podcast, it's like, you know, this is a
great this is great fodder for science fiction or fantasy,
you know, be it. You know the results of wizard
battles or Dragon's Breath, and we encourage everyone to write
in if you had an example. So that's what this is,

(31:43):
answering your request for examples of fulgarites in fantasy media.
I draw your attention to Monster Hunter. Wild's one of
the most recent installments in the popular Monster Hunter RPG series.
The series has a heavy focus on ecology and the
relationships of its settings peoples with huge monstrous fun. Joe,

(32:03):
have you played these games?

Speaker 3 (32:05):
No, I know nothing about them.

Speaker 2 (32:07):
I have seen, you know, the little thumbnails for them,
and I believe our former co host, Christian play that
played this and was a fan. I remember him talking
it up and we may have some friends in common
that we're also really into it, but I never I
have not myself played it, but here it's great.

Speaker 3 (32:25):
Just based on the description, I'm picturing some somewhere between
the Witcher and Pokemon.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
I guess that sounds about right. Yeah, my understanding. It
is kind of like an action RPG, right, so it's
not like turn based. You're out there in the wilds.
Folks can write in if they have further details they
want to share about the games, but this email continues.
Fulger Rites play an important role in the first region
the player explores in Monster Hunter Wilds, the Windward Planes.

(32:53):
This desert ecosystem is marked by massive folg right structures,
created both by the severe thunderstorm thunderstorms endemic to the
and by massive lightning channeling wyns. The region's apex predator,
a wyvern species called red aalh, presumably coats the leading
edges of its wings in sand and electrifies them to

(33:13):
turn its wing edges into shimmering blades of glass. WHOA,
all right, so this is not only fulgarites, but like
fulgarite tool use by magical beingslg.

Speaker 3 (33:25):
Fulgarite wing armor blades like swords and armor at the
same time.

Speaker 2 (33:30):
Yeah, yeah, they really ran with it. I didn't even
anticipate like this. This kind of invocation of Fulgrides redw
is often preceded by the tinkling sound of the wind
rustling the fulgarite on its scales when it's prey. Here,
the sound they attempt to flee. The indigenous human population
of the Windward Planes have learned to exploit this signal

(33:50):
by collecting shed crystals of fulgarite from ray Now and
stringing them into wind chimes. The tinkling wind chimes ward
other monsters away from their sheltered settlements in the region's canyons.
Hope this is the sort of thing you were looking for.
The Monster Hunter franchise is really great and incorporating interesting
bits of natural science into their creature designs and fantasy storytelling.

(34:12):
I've attached some pictures of ray Dow, the Windward Planes
fulgar Rides, which are so large the player traverses them
in three dimensional labyrinths, and the Windward Planes village adorned
with fulgar Ride windshimes. As ever, thank you for producing
there's wonderful, thoughtful pieces and turning me on to so
many great weird films.

Speaker 3 (34:30):
All the best, Taylor, Thank you, Taylor. So I'm looking
at these screenshots now I see something that looks kind
of like a like a you know, gore On village
sort of design, with the rocks and the glass pieces
hanging from the ropes. I guess that's the fulgarites collected
by the people in this game universe. And then we
see the branching things that I initially thought were roots,

(34:51):
but okay, yeah, these are like giant fulgarites that the
character wanders through. And then there's a big old monster
that yes has dragon wing, and then at the edges
of the wings there are these massive shards of glass
that I guess the creature has made with some electricity.

Speaker 2 (35:07):
Yeah. Yeah, cool monster design. And I can already tell
this guy's got to be pretty frustrating to battle, though.
I guess they said they said it's the first zone
that you encounter, so maybe not that difficult. But sometimes
the first level boss can be pretty challenging.

Speaker 3 (35:21):
I yeah, I think that often happens, doesn't it Like
sometimes the first boss in the game is harder than
all the others.

Speaker 2 (35:28):
Yeah, I feel and often is the case that the
final boss is kind of a letdown. There have been
plenty of games I've played where I get to the
end it's like, oh, that's the boss, or oh, there's
not really a boss, just kind of fighting a an
array of enemies you encountered earlier.

Speaker 3 (35:44):
This doesn't really count because pretty much the whole thing's
hard all the way through. But I remember when I
tried to play Elden Ring before I realized like I
don't have time for this game. I tried to do it,
and you just sort of come out into the world
and then like the first thing you run into is
something that you absolutely cannot but you just have to
go around it. It will destroy you. This big golden

(36:07):
guy on a horse who just beats you down or
I don't know, maybe if people who are good at
video games can beat it, but but I felt like
it's almost trying to teach you something there, like you know,
you just have to run away from some things at
least at whatever level you are. Okay, you good if

(36:34):
I do this message from David about the thing before
the beginning.

Speaker 2 (36:37):
Yeah, yeah. Tying into another multi part series that we've
we've been airing in recent weeks.

Speaker 3 (36:42):
Right, So, this was a series about creation narratives, and
specifically about in creation narratives, what is described as the
way things are before the world is created or ordered.
And that's a kind of surprise to some people because
sometimes people think that creation narratives tend to be about
the initial making of the universe out of nothing. Most

(37:06):
of the creation narratives that you can find are not
like that. They're actually like orderings and furnishings of pre
existing universes. So this comes from David. David says dear
Robin Joe. I was listening to your episode on Things
before the Beginning. I had heard before your episode about
the better translation of the start of the Book of

(37:27):
Genesis as quote, God began separating. Yeah, so this is
one of the things we talked about in the episode.
The creation narrative in the Book of Genesis is often
misunderstood as a creation ex nihilo, a creation of the
world out of nothing, but most translators now agree that
the better way of understanding what the story is trying

(37:47):
to say is that a sort of dark, chaotic world
of waters already existed at the beginning of the story,
and then God begins to separate things and bring things
into that world, brings in light brings in creatures and
separates the waters and the earth and stuff like that.
David goes on to say, but your discussion of the

(38:08):
translation reminded me of an encounter I had back when
I was in college. I don't remember how it started, hmm,
self referential problem, but while I was walking back from
a class, I entered into a conversation with a guy
who was clearly a young missionary. Oh yeah, Rob, do
you ever have college campus encounters with some preachers who

(38:30):
like to hang out on campus?

Speaker 2 (38:32):
Ooh yeah, I imagine I did, but I don't have
very clear memories of them, but yeah, they were around.

Speaker 3 (38:37):
Yeah. I feel like it's a common experience of students
walking up to a preacher at their college campus who's
yelling things at the students and thinking like, well, I
can argue this guy out of whatever he's saying, And
then when you start talking to him, you realize like, oh,
this guy is really used to talking to people like
me all day, and I've never had a conversation like

(38:59):
this before. So you just end up kind of feeling
embarrassed and walking away. Anyway, So David says he was
upfront about wanting to talk about God, and I was
interested enough to engage. After a couple of questions about
what I was studying in my religious background, he asked
if I agreed that everything in the universe has a cause.

(39:22):
Having recently taken an intro to philosophy class, I immediately
recognized the start of the first cause argument. I think
it originates from Aristotle and was developed into a more
formal argument by Thomas Aquinas. I'm probably going to mangle this,
but for listeners who are unaware, the first cause argument
is basically that since everything has a cause, the universe

(39:45):
itself must have a cause, but the cause for the
universe could not have a cause, and thus must be
uncaused and eternal, and an uncaused and eternal thing is God.
If I make the argument sound wea I will admit
that it was more but not very convincing when I
read it originally in class, but I now believe it

(40:07):
is significantly gibberish. But back to the story. The missionary
asked if I agreed that everything in the universe had
a cause, and I said no. He looked completely shocked
after ten or fifteen seconds of processing that I had
already gone off script from his expected argument. He asked
me how that was possible. I explained that I was

(40:27):
studying physics and at the quantum level, things just happen randomly.
There isn't a cause for a particular atom of uranium
to decay into byproducts. There's just a percentage chance that
it does. And moreover, some physics data is best explained
by assuming that particles and antiparticles are appearing and self

(40:48):
annihilating all the time, So the Big Bang might have
been caused by some large, random quantum fluctuation. He said
he'd have to look into that, and that was it
for him. Conversation attempt tying all the way back to
the episode. First, I think your discussion makes me suspect
that the cause of the first cause argument is the

(41:11):
improper translation in the beginning God created. If I had
known then the translation of God began by separating, I
probably would have asked the missionary about that issue as well.
And Second, while your discussion focused on mythology, even talking
about current cosmology, it is still possible that there was
something prior to the Big Bang, even if we don't

(41:34):
know that. Interested in your reactions and comments, and as always,
thank you for the great podcast. Regards. David, PS, You've
done a couple of Weird House episodes on movies from
the sixties, so I will repeat my request for Zardas.

Speaker 2 (41:50):
I'll know Zardas is a nineteen seventy four picture, but
I think it's fair to say that in many ways
it is a product of the sixties. I mean, you
can the thirteen sixties, you can make that argument. But
in terms of the general request for Czar Does, we
probably should just go ahead to Tsardes. At some point
here in the past we've kind of I remember, kind

(42:12):
of quibbling at one point over like, I don't know
about the content ratings on Tzar Does, but I don't
know who cares. We should just do Tzar Does.

Speaker 3 (42:19):
Yeah, Sean Connery and the Red diaper with the long
braid and the unbelievable it's iconic.

Speaker 2 (42:25):
Yeah, yeah, I see referenced all the time. We should
just dig in.

Speaker 3 (42:29):
But yeah, these are all good points, David. I agree
that I, you know, don't want to be disrespectful to
anybody's beliefs. But I find the first cause argument very unconvincing.
I think it relies on equivocation. It relies on equivocation
about what it means for something to have a cause.
And then on top of that, I think you can

(42:51):
also bring up the idea that some things we observe
in reality probably don't have a cause, depending on how
you define what a cause is. So, yeah, I think
there are a lot of problems with that argument. And
then beyond that, Yeah, I think you raised it. We
sort of talked about this in the episode, but I'm
glad you explored this in more depth. The idea that

(43:13):
many people are out there formulating, like logical and evidence
based apologetics arguments for a particular religion based on what
is probably a misunderstanding of what is what that religion's
creation story is attempting to say. So that's another kind
of contradiction there like that. I don't know how it

(43:36):
would affect it. Would the missionary who makes the first
cause argument for Christianity stop making the first cause argument
if they were convinced that actually the genesis narrative does
not say that the universe was created out of nothing.
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (43:52):
Yeah, all I know is that again, I don't have
any specific memories of encountering preacher folk or anything on
college campuses, but just the idea of getting into some
sort of a a bad faith of philosophical theological discussion
of the stranger. Not my comfort zone. I just want
no part. I don't want to be wrong, I don't

(44:13):
want to be right. I just don't want that conversation.
These are of course, I love these topics, but that's
just not the sort of environment where I want to
engage with anybody about them.

Speaker 3 (44:23):
Well, yeah, I mean, if you talk to somebody who's
out making arguments like that in a public space, you know,
I don't want to impugne everybody's motives, but I'd say
the chances are low that they are ready to have
a mutually respectful listening and sharing of ideas. They are performing,
they're they're trying to like prove something to onlookers by,

(44:46):
you know, they're being rhetorical. They're probably not trying to
have a meeting of the minds and see if you
make any good points.

Speaker 2 (44:52):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, why to dine me first a
little bit? You know? Yeah, all right, I'm going to
skip on through the mailbag here to something we receive
from Claire and Sean. We received this just the other day,
and recording this on June first. They say Hello, stuff
to blow your mind. I was wondering if you plan

(45:13):
to do a little late celebration of the new Boards
of Canada release in the form of a Weird House
Cinema episode. They are referring to the new album from
Boards of Canada Inferno, which just came out the other day,
and I actually just sat and listened to several times
through on a flight back from Denver. So I'm very

(45:36):
freshly immersed in the album and I'm still sort of
working my way through it.

Speaker 3 (45:41):
But Roddy, sorry, do you know Claara and Sean, Like,
how do they know you so well that this is
up your alley?

Speaker 2 (45:47):
I me, you know, we've mentioned Boards of Canada on
the show before, so I think it's just it's just
come up if they you know, they they know me
at all from the podcast. They know that I'm a
big Boards of Canada fan, but they so they included
a quote here. This is, I believe taking taken off
of one of the Boards of Canada fan pages, but

(46:07):
it refers to a nineteen ninety nine interview with herb
magazine RB in which the two individuals who make up
Boards of Canada, Michael Sanderson and Marcus Owen. They each
gave a top ten list of films, and it says
that the majority of them have been identified. Some such

(46:27):
as Ice Core Drilling, remain unknown and have been indicated
as such. These are neat lists to look at because
they are a mix of very mainstream films and things
that are either so obscure that we don't know exactly
what they're referring to, but it's neat. Sanderson's list has

(46:48):
let's see a few that stand out here. Dark Star
John Carpenter's film is on the list. The Elephant Man
makes the list. Those are both fascinating picks. And then
as far as Marcus Owen's top ten includes let's see
the Invention of Destruction, which I believe refers to the
Invention for Destruction which we have discussed on Weird House Cinema.

(47:11):
It includes Alice, which I you know, I believe must
be the the John Smickmeyer Alice that has also been
covered on Weird House Cinema, but then also The Andromeda String,
Jesus Christ, Superstar, Capricorn I, and The Wizard of Oz.

Speaker 3 (47:28):
Invention for Destruction is definitely one of my favorite movies
we've done on weird house, and I can see why.
I don't know that much about the Boards of Canada creators,
but it fits with the sound of their music for me.

Speaker 2 (47:40):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there's I think overall less known
about them compared to a lot of other musicians. They're
not I mean, they're not going to say they're completely secretive,
like there are things that are known about them. But
you know, the vibe I generally get when I read
about Boards of Canada is that they prefer to be
a little a little further back and then the material,
the music is in the forefront. And yeah, I'm I'm

(48:04):
I'm really enjoying Inferno so far. It's delivering on all
my expectations for a new Boards of Canada album, which
itself I think is a major deal. The last one
was twenty thirteen's Tomorrow's Harvest, and in many ways, like
that one, I was for a long time I assumed
that was the last Boards of Canada album. I you know,
there wasn't a lot of information out there that was

(48:25):
that that indicated that there was going to be another one.
And it also kind of feels like it came out
a lifetime ago because it came out right before a
major transition in my life, right before I became a parent,
and so a decade later, you know, obviously a lot
has changed. And and then here comes this new Boards
of Canada album with some I mean people saw it coming.

(48:46):
It was, it was predicted, but but I but it
wasn't until the album art was released, and then I
really like, oh, this is actually happening. There's actually going
to be another Boards of Canada album. And so again
it has it has met my expectation, but it's also
in unexpected ways. It has also really impressed me. So
I don't want to overhype it, but I feel like

(49:10):
Tomorrow's Harvest was easily the greatest album of its decade,
and I think Inferno shows all the signs of being
the best of its own, of our own dark age, heure, yeah,
And it's it's an album that feels, you know it,
It's not a album that feels exclusively of its time.
I was thinking about this the other day, Like Tomorrow's

(49:31):
Harvest and really all the other Boards of Canada albums
as well, to me, they feel like a message arriving
from outside of our own time, you know. And part
of that is obviously the sonic alchemy that they weave
with the nostalgic sounds and different bits of media that
are woven together in this you know, electronic matrix.

Speaker 3 (49:51):
But it sounds like a polaroid photo.

Speaker 2 (49:54):
Yeah. Yeah, so it does feel like something of the past,
but it has, you know, the futurest part of it
as well, So it feels like it is something maybe
outside of our linear experience entirely. It feels like prophecy.
It feels like music that you don't merely listen to,
you kind of integrate with and maybe it listens back
to back to you and it knows that you are there.

Speaker 3 (50:16):
Yeah. I have not had the opportunity to listen to
the new album yet, but I would. I'm very much
looking forward to it. I'm not as much of a
super fan as you, but I really love Boards of Canada.
I listened to Music Has the Right to Children ten
million times.

Speaker 2 (50:31):
I don't know, amazing album obviously. Yeah, yeah, this one's
This one's amazing as well. And I recommend listening to
it maybe in a dark room with your eyes shut,
you know, in one big, big, long listening session. Just
listen to the whole thing beginning to end, and you know,
see see where it takes you. So yeah, as far
as movies off that list for us to cover, I

(50:53):
don't know. Dark Star has been on my list for
a long time. I imagine we'll get to that one eventually.
And there are some others on here that could be fun.
You know, we could easily discuss the Andromeda Strain or
Capricorn One or even the Wizard of Oz.

Speaker 3 (51:06):
I say, we got to track down ice Core Drilling.
That's my kind of movie.

Speaker 2 (51:10):
Ice Core Drilling. Yeah, yeah, what are the the ideas?
According to this says unknown thought to be perhaps a
National Film Board of Canada film, although the National Film
Board of Canada's website makes no mention of any film
by this title might be, and they refer to another
title like Artich four or something. So again, I think

(51:32):
they were, you know, maybe casually answering this question, so
they might be referring to this other film. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (51:38):
Well, I like the idea that their list of that
specifically for the creators of Boards of Canada, that their
list of films would include something that sounds like it
could be a kind of industry informational film or something
that's not meant for the general public. Because that I
think they you know, it feels like they could source

(51:58):
a lot from those types of media or not, just
as they could that they do.

Speaker 2 (52:02):
Actually, oh yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 3 (52:12):
Anyway, Okay, would you like me to read one of
these other ones here? Let's see.

Speaker 2 (52:19):
Yeah, what else do we have in the mailbag? We
have some weird house cinema messages in particular.

Speaker 3 (52:24):
Yeah, we can do. Let's see this one. How about
this one from Matt about Star Crash. Oh yes, Star
Crash Memories from an old guy. Matt says, Hi, Robert
and Joe, I really enjoyed your recent episode on Star Crash,
a movie that made a big impression on me, both
good and bad when it came out. Imagine being an

(52:44):
eleven year old science fiction fan in nineteen seventy seven
and having your whole world rocked by Star Wars. Also,
imagine that there was no way to see Star Wars
after its theatrical run, So anything even vaguely related to
a movie set in space is going to be on
your radar, and you'd beg your parents, grandparents, or any

(53:05):
adult who'd listen to take you to see that movie. Lastly,
imagine sitting in a theater and watching Star Crash. The
mood of the audience went from excitement to disappointment pretty quickly,
but the constant costume changes and the always wonderful Carolyn
Monroe kept the interest up, and once there was an

(53:26):
acceptance of the goofiness embedded in every frame, my friends
and I had a mildly entertaining afternoon. Unexpectedly, though, a
Star Crash stuck with us. Constant discussions of the movie's
shortfalls led to an appreciation of bad or weird movies
and the fun that could be had in staying up
late to watch some forgotten gem on TV. This coincided

(53:48):
with the release of the Medved Brothers books, The Golden
Turkey Awards, and The Fifty Worst Movies of All Time,
so we were hooked. Once video rentals became a thing,
a whole world of weird and wonderful movies opened up,
and I remember many incredible nights with friends watching some
awful movie and laughing so hard I could hardly breathe.

(54:08):
Fast forward to now, in my original attitude to Star
Crash has changed. I love the energy and the throw
it all at the wall and see what sticks attitude
of the filmmakers. I love the colorful stars that look
like Christmas decorations, the ship models with obvious sprus and
spray cand lids glued to them, and the bizarre dialogue
that throws in crazy ideas but never sees them through.

(54:31):
I hope one day to get my well worn Star
Crash DVD signed by Carolyn Monroe or David Hasselhoff or both.
Thanks for the podcast. A show that combines interesting facts
with a weekly weird movie was always going to be
right up my right up my alley. But the two
of you always find the right tone to hit, whether
you're discussing hard science, interesting culture, or a bizarre Italian

(54:53):
space movie with a Texan robot and a spaceship fist.
Cheers Matt. Well, thank you, Matt. That makes me feel wonderful.

Speaker 2 (55:01):
Yeah yeah, yeah, that's right in there. And that then
diagram that we've created of interest.

Speaker 3 (55:06):
Yeah all right.

Speaker 2 (55:08):
This next one comes to us from Karen. Karen says, hey,
w HC, dudes, I didn't see Brother from Another Planet
on your letterbox list, and it's a wonderful movie. Consider
it if you're ever at a loss. By the way,
Karen is referring to our profile on letterbox dot com.

(55:29):
You can look us up there. We're a weird house.
We have a list of all the movies we've covered
over the years there, so you can see what we've
covered and sometimes you get a peek ahead at what
we're covering next. But indeed, Brother from Another Planet it
is not on the list because we have not covered it.
Karen continues, love your show. Been listening to stuff to
blow your mind and offshoots forever. Thanks for exposing me
to schlock and sometimes not schlock that I never would

(55:52):
have seen if not for you, except Forbidden Planet, which
has been my fave since I first saw it and
was thrilled that you did anp on it. Any thanks
for the infotainment, Karen.

Speaker 3 (56:03):
Well, thank you very much. Karen. Yeah, Brother from Another
Planet directed by John Sales. I've hit that on my
list for a long time. I've never seen it, but
I've heard it's great.

Speaker 2 (56:13):
Yeah, yeah that that has also been on my list
for a while, and I don't know that might be
might be one that we cover later this month there, Yeah,
one of the Friday slots coming up. I'm thinking of
possibly picking Spaces the place, but Brother from Another Planet
also strong contender. And then Finally, I'm going to include
one message here from our discord server. If you would

(56:36):
like to join our discord server, just email us. We're
going to throw that email out here in a minute.
Email lists will send you a link to the discord.
It's a much smaller, i think, segment of the listener base,
but you know, kind of keep it small because it
stays cozy that way. But anyone is free to join.
Matt says here, apparently there is a mobile armor, like

(56:58):
a mobile suit, not human shaped, in the Gundam universe.
This is this is the Bandai Namco series. This is
a you know, Gundam. So if you know what a
Gundam is, you know what I'm talking about. If not,
look it up and then you it'll be like, oh,
that's a Gundam, I know what that is. But Matt
says that there is there's a particular mobile armor in

(57:19):
the Gundam universe called a Gromlin. And he says maybe
someone at Bandai at Namco is a fan of eighties
and nineties Grimlins copycat movies. He includes a picture here
and I've included this for you to look at.

Speaker 3 (57:32):
Joe.

Speaker 2 (57:32):
Folks out there, you can look up Gundam Gromlin, and
you will see this as well. It's, as Matt points out,
a bizarre design with one leg and a weird kind
of like arm on a wire. So it's a very
strange looking like anime. It looks like a spaceship, but
it is a combat suit of some sort.

Speaker 3 (57:52):
I interpreted this as two legs sort of twisted together
and a head on a long, thin neck, so it
looks to me kind of like a green metal flamingo.

Speaker 2 (58:02):
Yeah, it looks like a chicken leg to me. Yeah,
it's kind of like the Bobba Yaga's House. But make
it sci fi, make it anime. So this was fun.
If you've listened to us on Weird House Cinema before,
you know that when we say Gromlin, we're talking about
any kind of cinematic creature that occurs in the wake
of nineteen eighty four's Grimlins, regardless of comparative effects slash

(58:27):
puppetry quality, though generally it's going to be of poorer equality,
thus invoking the idea of subpark Grimlins, Grimlins at home,
or of course, generic off brand grimlins that might be
called Gromlins.

Speaker 3 (58:39):
Right, Hobgoblins, munchies, that sort of thing.

Speaker 2 (58:43):
Yeah, that sort of thing. But even in like our
discussion of Jim Henson's Storyteller, that's what we're talking about,
the Soldier and death, some great devils in there, and
we were talking I think we discussed whether or not
these were Gromlins. There's some Gromlin energy to them, although
they were obviously made by puppetry masters.

Speaker 3 (59:00):
Good Gromlins, Good Gromlins.

Speaker 2 (59:01):
Yeah, I mean, I love all Gromlins. They're they're they're
all beloved in my eyes. But that's what we were
talking about when we talk about with talk about Gromlins.
I think the usage in the Gundam universe definitely predates,
so I was looking into it a little. I think
the Gromlin sued here is from the late nineties, so
they were definitely using it before we were using it.

(59:23):
I was also looking around to see why who else
is using the word Gromlin, And apparently it's the name
of a fictional English town in the music of the
band love Joy. Not really familiar with this band, I
think they were they were formed and in recent years,
the last twenty years at any rate, but there's some
sort of fictional town they've created named Gromlin. I like
that idea as well.

Speaker 3 (59:43):
Never heard of that. But are are there Gromlins in
the town of Gromlin.

Speaker 2 (59:47):
I don't know anything about it, but I want to
go to there, much like the town of Millbag. I
also also want to go visit Nilboch.

Speaker 3 (59:52):
This Gromlin spelled backwards, mil Milmore, neil Moore.

Speaker 2 (01:00:00):
Neil More works. Yeah, that's if you're creating some sort
of fiction out there and you need a town name,
go with nil Moore. Just spell Gromlin and then do
it backwards. You'll have a clearer idea of what you're
working with. Here. All right, we're gonna go ahead and
close the mail bag here, but I mean, there was
a lot we didn't get to in this edition. We'll
be back with another edition at least next month.

Speaker 3 (01:00:21):
We'll be back.

Speaker 2 (01:00:21):
We generally do about one of these a month, but
there there's no shortage of listener mails for us to discuss.
We generally don't have time to respond one on one
when people write in, but rest assured we read it all,
we sort through it all, and then of course we
don't have time to bring it all up on the show.
But we greatly appreciate it when you take the time
to write in about any and everything, be it a

(01:00:43):
little field reporting on a particular topic, or recommendations for
the future, you know, corrections, whatever the case may be,
we are happy to hear from you. Just a reminder.
The Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science
and culture podcast, with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays,
chort form ofpisodes on Wednesdays and on Fridays. That's when
we set aside most serious concerns to just talk about

(01:01:04):
a weird film on Weird House Cinema.

Speaker 3 (01:01:06):
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
you can email us at contact at stufft Blow your
Mind dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:01:26):
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.