March 17, 2026 • 51 mins
Once more, it's time for a dose of Stuff to Blow Your Mind and Weirdhouse Cinema listener mail...
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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 listener Mail.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
My name is Robert Lamb and I am Joe McCormick,
and every so often on the Stuff to Blow Your
Mind podcast we do an episode like this where we
read back messages from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind
email address. We usually give it at the end of
every episode, but we'll give it at the top of
this one. If you have never gotten in touch before,
you should give it a try. It's contact at stuff
(00:35):
to Blow your Mind dot com. All types of messages
are welcome. Of course, we always appreciate feedback to recent
episodes or older episodes if you want so. If you've
got a correction that you need to give on something
we said in an episode, obviously please send it our way.
We always want to make sure we're getting all the
facts right. But if you have something interesting to add
(00:56):
to a topic we've talked about, something we did not
get into in an episode series that would add to
the subject, that's bullseye. That's exactly what we want kind
of build on what we've done here in our listener
mail episodes. Also, just any general feedback. If you want
to suggest a topic for the future, suggest a movie
for Weird House Cinema, or just say hi, tell us
an interesting story, whatever suits you. Contact at stuff to
(01:20):
Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
You can also email us at that address and ask
for the invite link for our discord server, which is
intentionally kept kind of like tight knit. But if you
just email us and ask for the invite code, we'll
send it your way and you can give it a shot.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
So let's see, Rob, are you good? If we kick
things off with responses to our crab bag series.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
We absolutely should kick off with craps.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
So this was a recent roundup we did of all
kinds of topics related to crabs, crab stuff, biological, behavioral, technological, metaphorical,
and spiritual. And this series was in part requested by
a listen our listener, Hannah, who did get in touch
after we started the series with an email subject line
(02:06):
OMG OMG OMG crabs and then the body just said
thank you, So you're welcome, Hannah. But I figure I'm
going to kick things off after this with a message
from Hugh and this is responding to our story about
the miracle crab of Saint Francis Xavier, which, according to legend,
(02:27):
took hold of a crucifix that had been lost in
a storm at sea, and then brought that crucifix, raised
in its claws, back to its owner, Saint Francis, once
he had landed on shore. So, Hugh says, dear Robert,
Joe and JJ, do you think Xavier's crab booked it
(02:48):
that entire way or was maybe a relay situation. Yeah,
I didn't think about that. The crabs are working together.
That did come up later, and actually later in the
first episod, right, the question of whether crabs are ever
cooperative or whether it's always just one crab for themselves.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah, I don't know. I guess this comes into the
imagined religious views of crabs. Are the crabs of the ocean?
Are they one body of Christ? Are they one people
who would do this? Or is this one crab an outlier?
Are the rest of the crabs like atheist crabs? And
this one crab has become faithful and participates in this miracle.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
That one Catholic crab the one that will go and
preach to the nations of crabs. Yeah. Oh, and I
forgot to set this up. But in this email, Hugh
also makes reference to something where in this classic Renaissance
painting of this miracle story where the crab is coming
on shore, the crab is holding the crucifix up in
(03:50):
the air above its body. And I was looking at
this painting and I was like, why does this look
so familiar? And I realized it looks exactly like the
original theatrical release poster for Star Wars that has an illustrated,
very muscly rendition of Mark Hamill holding the lightsaber up
above his head. It's uncanny the resemblance, very very similar.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Tom Young, the artist who did the famous poster, by
the way, a pretty accomplished Chinese American post poster art artist.
Pretty great stuff.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
It's a classic, even if it does give a different
kind of vibe than the movie, like it may it
makes it makes Luke Skywalker look like Conan the Barbaria
instead of like, you know, you're supposed to be kind
of a kid who's just looking for adventure. Yeah, But anyway,
Hugh makes reference to that part of the episode, saying, also,
I had always seen that Star Wars poster as an
(04:40):
homage to Frank Frazetta. Maybe Frank got the idea from
the painting you referenced. Congratulations on the Netflix gig. Thanks, huh,
You're all doing a great job, Hugh. So, I actually
did not know Frank Frazetta, at least my name, well
not my name. Once I looked it up, I was like, oh,
I recognize this style. So it is the classic paperback
(05:03):
fantasy book cover style where you got hot barbarians and
loincloth and metal bikinis, and you get weird monsters and
beasts bristling, a lot of muscles and gleaming weapons and
just bodies. And the figures in these in these illustrations
have a lot of I was trying to think what
(05:23):
to call this. They just have a lot of poise.
They're like they they look like like statues in motion
kind of. They're radiating strength and victory.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Yeah. Yeah, I've never really attempted to put any of
it in words concerning Frank Fazeta, but you know, I've
been I've been a fan of Frank Vizzeta for ages,
and I think I follow the official Frank Fazeta Instagram account,
so I keep bombarding myself with images of his and
sometimes ones that I've never seen before, but yeah, there's
something about his work. I mean, you know, he was
(05:54):
great at capturing the human form and admired it greatly.
And sometimes those human forms are not even wearing loincloths
or metal bikinis. Sometimes they are naked. But then also
all of these fantasy elements and sci fi elements that
were you know, you know, a part of the commercial
aspect of so many of these works. And there is
(06:15):
that sense of movement, And I don't necessarily have the
artistic language in my head to describe all of this,
but there is a sense of like culmination and rising
and physical movement, like the muscles that you see and
the bones, like they all seem to be biologically active
(06:38):
and some rippling.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Yeah yeah, yeah, so yeah, very much concerned with strength
and sexiness and weirdness all coming together.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Yeah, And it is a style that is so attached
to a specific time, Like anytime I see Frank Fizzetta,
I also want to see that work on the side
of a van, some sort of a wizard van roaring
down a nineteen seventies highway.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Sometimes I think, like, if I had a billion dollars,
what's the first thing I'd get, Like a wizard Van
get that air brushed out real good. But yeah, anyways,
so I h I was like, wait a minute, did
Frank Frazetta ever do a crab?
Speaker 2 (07:17):
You know?
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Good question? So I googled Frank Frizzetta crab. Did not
find anything that looked authentic. There were some grotesque looking,
smoothed out AI imitations that I hated, but so far
as I know, he never did any crab stuff.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
I'm going to be on the lookout now because again
I regularly bombard myself with for Zetta images, So if
a crab pope pops up, I will report on it
here and listeners. If you know of a Frank Fazzeta
crab work, send it in. Yeah. This is fun because
I was just the other day. I was looking through
some titles for some Clark Ashton Smith short stories and
(07:51):
I found one that has crabs in the title and
in the plot, and I've never read it before. So
I'm like, okay, I'm going to cue this up. The
crabs crabs await us everywhere, even in places we thought
we'd fully explore.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Was it called like the Magic of Crabs or Master
of Crabs? Master of Crabs?
Speaker 2 (08:08):
So I think it's dueling wizards and crabs, but I
haven't I haven't read it yet, but it's it's cue up.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Dear God, it's made for me. Well, I'm going to
go read it whenever I get a chance. Here, let's see, Rob,
do you want to do this message from Nathan?
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Yes? Uh oh this yeah, I'm going in cold on
this one. I did not read this one when it
came in, got lost in the shuffle. But Nathan comes
at us with the subject why is a raven like
a writing desk? This is a reference. I forget even
how this came up.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
But I've actually got a note about this.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Okay, good, good, Yeah, I'll start reading and then you
can jump in with clarification. Okay, Dear Rob, Joe and JJ.
At the end of part four of your Crab brag
Bag Crab grab Bag episodes, you brought up the question
why is a raven like a writing desk? As an
(08:59):
example of a riddle with no clear answer, as if
it were designed to start arguments.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
So I also at first couldn't remember how we got there,
and I had to look it up. But this came
up because you were talking about Japanese folk tales in
which a crab asks riddles and then kills you if
you don't answer correctly. Usually the answer to the riddle
is crab, you know, like describes a creature and then
you're like, what am I? And the person is supposed
(09:25):
to guess crab, but they usually don't. And this led
to us talking about whether nefarious crabs of some kind
could be behind the social media strategy where people post
riddles that don't actually have answers. In this case, it's
to get people confused and make them waste a lot
of time engaging with a post on social media or
(09:46):
like arguing in the comments, And the purpose of this
is engagement farming, trying to game the system on these
you know, horrible social algorithms. But this led to Rob
mentioning the riddle why is a raven like a writing desk,
which obviously predates social media, but the through line was
that this is also a riddle without a clear intended answer, or.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
At least that's the way I always thought of it. Again,
this is a This just pops up in the last Unicorn,
if I remember correctly, Yeah, yeah, And then Nathan goes
on to clarify Rob mentioned its use in the film
The Last Unicorn, but this riddle originally comes from Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland, Okay, written by Lewis Carroll in eighteen
sixty five. The Mad Hatter asked this of Alice during
(10:29):
the Mad Tea party. He doesn't wait for an answer
before the conversation moves on, but when Alice asks for
the answer later, he replies, I haven't the slightest idea.
See now, I'm wondering if it actually is in the
Last Unicorn, and if I'm not misremembering something from Alice
in Wonderland. Oh, Okay, who knows. I have a feeling
we'll come back around to The Last Unicorn on Weird
(10:49):
House Cinema at some point in the future, so we'll
figure that out then. Okay, But anyway, more answers from
Nathan here he continues. According to The nit Alice by
Martin Gardner, Carol wrote the riddle with no answer in mind,
but that didn't stop many readers from suggesting their own.
There are too many proposed solutions to list in full.
(11:10):
But here are some better ones. Okay, here we.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Go, or some better I think, better known ones.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Better known ones, yes, yeah, okay, this one from Sam
Lloyd because Poe wrote on both that's good. Okay, yeah, yeah, okay,
that that checks out. I had to think about it
for a second. Both have inky quills. Hmm yeah, okay, yeah,
or maybe all right. One is a rest for pins.
The other is a pest for wrens with a w Okay,
(11:40):
that's clever. That's clever. That one does a few backflips
in that one, which I like. Okay, here's one. This
one comes. This one was apparently attributed to Alba Sucksley.
Because there is a B in both and an inn
in neither.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
I don't get that.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
I don't get anything. That's that's the way Homer. We're
gonna have to think about that.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
There is an N in both writing desk and raven,
and there is not a bee in either one. So
I don't I'm not following. There's some kind of irony
here that's gone past me.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
But there is a bee in the word both, and
there's an N in the word neither. Yeah, okay, oh,
this one was. Here's an answer that came there was
presented in Stephen King's The Shining. This is a book
I read in junior high. So it's been a long time.
But this answer is the higher the fewer. Of course,
(12:29):
the higher the fewer.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Okay, that one's gone past me.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Oh wait, wait, Nathan says, this is actually the answer
to an entirely different nonsense riddle, when is a mouse
if it spins?
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Okay, I still don't get it, Okay.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
They continue. In the preface of the eighteen ninety six
edition of the book, Carroll himself finally included his own
solution to the riddle, while acknowledging it was just an
after that quote because it can produce a few notes,
though they are very flat, and it is never put
with the wrong end. First, Carol intentionally misspelled the word
(13:05):
never as n e v a r raven spelled backwards,
but later printers corrected the spelling to any v e
r and so the punchline was lost in translation, or
rather in transcription. Thanks as always for your delightful and
insightful podcast, Nathan, Thank you, Nathan. Yeah, that's that's that's
I again. I'm not entirely sure now if this poem,
(13:28):
I mean, this riddle is reference in the Last Unicorn.
Maybe I was misremembering it from else Adventures in Wonderland,
But at any rate, This was a lot of fun
going through these supposed answers to it.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
My favorite is Poe wrote on both that's.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Good, that's good. Yeah, Yeah, one is a pet, one
is a rest for pens and the other pets for rinds.
I will also.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
Exactly yeah, thumbs up. Yeah, okay, you want me to
do this one from.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Chris, Let's do it?
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Chris says, oh. Subject line Mysteries and Crabs Robert and
Joe while enjoying the Vault, episode three of Mystery Cults,
focusing in part on the experiences associated with them being
less about appeasing deities but more about becoming part of
the mortal's identity and possibly a combination of revelation and inspiration.
(14:21):
I was struck by the example of the goddess Demeter's
daughter Persephone and her eating food while in hades and
it's binding her there. It reminded me of Hyamiyazaki's excellent
Spirited Away, in which a family inadvertently travels to a
spirit realm, where the parents eat at an empty restaurant
and are turned into pigs by a resident for their transgression. Yeah,
(14:44):
they eat of the food of the spirit world, and
thus they are trapped there. I don't remember crabs being
part of their meal, so there is no connection to
the Crabbag episodes that I'm aware of. However, Crabbag episode
three and your discussion of crabs as inspiration for military
devices an inventor is writing directly to President Lincoln. And
the mention of balloons used during the Civil War did
(15:06):
bring to mind Jules Verne's Mysterious Island, in which balloonists
blown to an island in the South Pacific did encounter
a giant crab, among other things, at least in the
nineteen sixty one si Infield film version. Keep out the
good work, and maybe iHeart will finally give you, gentlemen,
that squad of research assistants and librarians you deserve. Chris, Yes,
(15:29):
it's a long shot. I keep requesting them. I want
them to be like the Dwarves and the Phantasm movies,
except they do research for us. Yeah. This is kind
of a yeah, a peek into behind the scenes discussions.
You know, We've talked about this before, and I feel
like part of the problem is that the research process
is sort of how we create the product. Like a
(15:51):
lot of what we end up talking about is not
just presenting information, but talking about the process of learning
about a subject, which you only really get if you
do the research yourself.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
So yeah, and finding the little the little research conduits
that that speak to us individually. It leads us in
some of our some of our favorite areas in the podcast,
you know, some of our favorite discussions and uh and
subtopics have been just because we've followed our own particular
interests while researching. And you know, you might get that
(16:26):
if you had a really good research You know, certainly
there's plenty of podcasters out there and writers and so
forth use researchers and make good use of their their talents.
And I don't know, maybe we're just stubborn and we
should we should give it a shot. But h but
this is what we've done so far.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Oh but coming back to Jules Verne and the Mysterious Island,
I don't think I ever read that book. If I did,
for some reason, I have a weak memory of it,
but I uh don't think and I don't think i've
seen the movie either. But it's one of those stories
I just have a vague general awareness of. And I
was thinking about a giant crab there.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Yeah, Yeah, I have seen a giant crab scene because
it's got a big of stop motion crabs. But yeah,
I haven't seen the film in full.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
All right, well, Rob, you want to pick. We don't
have to do these in order pick pick whatever you
want for the.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Next Yeah, this next one's highly visual. It's gonna be
lost on nearly everyone. Even if you have video, you're
not gonna see this image, I guess. But at any rate,
this one comes to us from Sir Eel, subject crabstab.
They write as follows. Was doodling whilst listening to the
first two episodes of Crab grab Bag and the Saint
(17:29):
Francis story. That was that was an interesting subject. Note
the crab is no particular species and the crucifix is
of no particular denomination. Thank you for the years of
brain food and many more to come, sincerely, Sir Eel.
And then we have this nice tight little sketch here
of a crab species unknown holding crucifix denomination unknown that
(17:54):
has a Christ crucified on it.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
This crab is holding it overhead on its side, rather
than straight up as in the Xavier image imagery that
we were talking about.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Yeah, the painting we saw the crab is holding it
straight up like the lightsaber in the Star Wars poster,
so it's vertical orientation. But yeah, this makes more sense.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
And we also have a sort of a New York
Times style caption here, keep your junk out of my yard,
which I like. That's fun.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
Yeah. I will note that if this is supposed to
be a crucifix crab, I think the crucifix crab has
the little backweg legs or the swimmer legs, not the
walking legs like this. I'm not trying to criticize, sir Eel.
I appreciate the illustration. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
It's a miracle crab. You know who knows what it's for.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Miss Yeah, okay, let's see. I'll do this message from
Carrie Carrie right oh, subject line bass awkward horseshoe crabs.
This message is about the story we talked about in
Crabbag Part three, where a guy known only by the
initial C. D K wrote a marvelous letter to the
(19:02):
Scientific American. This was during the Civil War, and the
letter advocated that the Union Navy construct a giant steam
powered horseshoe crab called the King Crab Warship, which would
be invincible would be the ultimate naval technology, though there
were some details of both biology and technology in this
letter that seemed a little fuzzy, and CDK writes not
(19:27):
CDK sorry, Carry rights, Rob and Joe. Hearing cdk's description
of his idea contained in the Scientific American of a
ramming weapon modeled on the horseshoe crab, I get the
feeling that he never actually saw the animal in life.
That's the possibility. His description of the pointed prow, the
(19:48):
back being wedge shaped, the bow armored with a row
of smaller spikes, and the ability to raise and lower
its front makes me think that he was confused and
thought that the back end of the crab was actually
the front end. Yeah, we sort of came to the
same conclusion, and that's what it sounded like, Carrie says,
when you look at a horseshoe crab this way, his
(20:09):
description makes sense. The crab's rear end is pointed, its
actual head is wedge shaped, there is a row of
backwards pointing spikes, and the telson can lift the backside.
Just an observation. I thought, I chair take care, Carrie, carry.
I think you're I think you're dead. On on that
that that was my reading as well.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Yeah, so like inverted biommicry, here you venture into your
design using backwards understanding of the organism.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Though. I do love this as like a you know,
an idea that aliens come to Earth and look at
all these quadrupedal mammals and they all think that the
tails are a like spike coming out of the face,
and they're like, wow, they have all of these sensory
organs on their butts. That's so interesting.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
All right, let's been shrew on to an other one.
This one's really good. It concerns lily Putian hallucinations, so
this doesn't really concern crabs. I don't as possible crabs
will come up in the comment, but I don't think
they will. This one comes to us from a repeat correspondent, Renata,
and it goes as follows, Hi, Robin Joe. When I
(21:25):
saw there was an episode on lily Putian hallucinations, I
got confused and thought it was going to be about
something else called Alice in Wonderland syndrome. This, by the way,
is also discussed in Oliver Sack's book. Anyway, they continued,
thank you for the great episode. Lily Putian hallucinations are
equally fascinating, and I have a bit of secondhand experience
with that. More on that later. Alice in Wonderland syndrome
(21:49):
involves distorted perceptions of the size of yourself relative to
other objects, and even the size of one of your
body parts relative to one another. Alice's experiences in the
book are caused by a mushroom, but in reality, the
syndrome mainly affects children who have had a serious infection. Thankfully,
it usually doesn't last for most kids. I highly recommend
(22:10):
looking up some of the children's first hand accounts of
their experiences. This might sound mean, but there is something
especially adorable about the way that kids describe this bizarre
and unfamiliar experience, such as, Mommy, why did your hand
turn into a doll hand? If you look up the
very short Wikipedia article on the Lecutian hallucinations, it mentions
Alice in Wonderland's syndrome and a few other related syndromes.
(22:32):
What I find so intriguing about these is what you
brought up in the episode, which is that certain stimuli
can cause highly consistent hallucinations, while other hallucinogens involve a
broader range of altered experiences. Perhaps related is the phenomena
that certain drugs and drug combinations can induce deja vu,
sometimes an overwhelming and upsetting frequency of dejav vu. Now
(22:53):
that's interesting. I wasn't familiar with that myself. Yeah, so
we may have to come back to that. I don't
know that we've.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
We've done something on deja vous before.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Yeah, I don't remember talking about drug interactions or drug
combinations causing it though, Yeah, either, I have to look
into that anyway. I wish more science will be done
to understand these reproducible ways that our senses of reality
can be hindered or altered, as it could lead to
a better understanding of how our conscious perception is constructed.
(23:23):
But it seems like these cases are mostly on the
fringes of science and not study directly. Anyways, back to
lillly Fusian hallucinations. My dad has experienced them. He would
sometimes go walking at dusk or night, and he has
fairly bad eyesight. Not sure walking at night was the
best idea. He doesn't do it anymore. He said that
if he could make out something like a leaf or
(23:45):
a stick, he would see little people crawling on them
and dancing. I had already heard of these types of
hallucinations before and told him it was probably not serious
and not to worry too much. I should ask him
if he still ever experiences them. Truly wonderful, wonderful episodes
late you still find interesting topics and continue to be
delightful and entertaining after so many years.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
The very best renat Thank you, Ranata. Yeah, that's interesting,
and that would match with a lot of the research
we were looking at where Liliputian hallucinations, apart from being
triggered by consuming this particular mushroom in China, a common
way people get to these seems to be conditions affecting
the eye sight, like degeneration of eyesight or low light conditions.
(24:29):
Things that affect the vision itself in some way sometimes
lead to Liliputian hallucinations.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Yeah, yeah, so yeah. I absolutely love this bit of feedback,
and we love in any time we can get this
kind of like in the field response, you know, first
or secondhand, really really helps us understand the topics a
lot more, and I think helps illustrate it for listeners
as well.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Okay, I think I'm going to do a couple of
these messages about gold paint, if that's good with you, Rob, Yeah, yeah.
So in the last Listener Mail episode, read a message
that was following up on a thread about whether a
person will suffocate if they are painted gold like in
the movie Goldfinger. This originally came up in passing on
(25:12):
an episode about the Twilight Zone episode the Rip van
Winkle Caper, and because it was just kind of a
side comment, we actually hadn't researched the answer, but I
guessed that the answer was no, that would not happen
because humans don't actually significantly breathe through their skin. We
breathe through our lungs. But then on the Listener Mail
episode after that, a listener named Brian got in touch
(25:34):
to share a story from history in which a chronicler
of the Medichi family from the sixteenth century claimed, and
this was Brian's description. So, in Brian's words, quote, Pope
Leo the tenth, a Medichi and arguably the worst pope
of all time, had a boy painted fully painted in
gold to celebrate the Pope's return to Florence. The boy
(25:55):
died mere days later. I'm sure the I'm sure paint
in the sixteenth was highly questionable in and of itself,
so presumably any of the substances in the paint could
have been the cause. But yes, we do have death
by gold paint.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Well, this makes me feel a lot better, because you know,
I was doubting the gold finger thing, and I was like,
what else did I learn from bond films that I
now have to unlearn? So this I can breathe a
sigh of relief.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Here the most factual factual of all cannons. Yeah, but
then we talked about, Okay, so we don't know if
this historical story is actually true, but assuming it is true,
my guess was still probably that if this boy died,
it would be from something other than suffocation. I mean,
you could die from other things, yeah, like toxic chemicals
(26:43):
in the paint, or very likely actually from overheating, because
you know, this prevents you from like sweating and letting
heat out through your skin. But again, we breathe mostly
through our lungs, not through our skin, so it didn't
seem like suffocation would be the most likely explanation. But
of course, you know, as always, were open to contradictory evidence.
So we joked then about whether the MythBusters had ever
(27:06):
tried to sort this out and whether such an attempt
would would have involved painting Jamie Gold. Wouldn't you know?
The joke scenario that we conjured up actually happened on
the show and multiple listeners got in touch to let
us know. So this is from Karen. Karen says, Hi,
(27:27):
Robert and Joe. On your recent listener mail episode Lamerte,
you further discussed the possibility of death being caused by
being covered in gold paint, then offhandedly suggested that the
MythBusters may have done it, including joking did they paint
Jamie Gold? Yes to both, They did indeed test this
myth by painting Jamie with gold paint. The plan was
(27:49):
to cover him in paint and have him run on
a treadmill. However, after the latex paint was applied, Jamie
started to show a significant negative reaction. To everyone's surprise,
his blood pressure shot up and he reported feeling generally
ill and lightheaded. Two onset ParaMed two onset paramedics strongly
advised him not to do any strenuous exercise and remove
(28:09):
the paint immediately. The conclusion was that covering the skin
with latex paint caused him to overheat and subsequently feel
ill and stressed in various ways. The episode also featured
Shirley Eton, the actor who who portrayed the gold painted
woman in Goldfinger. Apparently there's an urban legend that she
died during filming as a result of the paint. She
(28:32):
recounted the experience on set, feeling very hot and strange
while being covered in paint, but definitely not dying. And
then Karen provides a link to the full episode and
talks a bit. Oh, and then says, I didn't write
in after you discussed this in the original episode because
I assumed many other people would bystander effect here. So
(28:53):
I'm writing in now in case any in case everyone
else is suffering from a listener male version of the
bystander effect. Oh, I preempted you. Yeah, sorry, Thanks for
the fantastic podcast, Karen.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
There you go that. Yeah, we we just we joked
that this this had possibly happened, and it had happened.
I'm glad nobody died though.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Yeah. So sounds like it could very well be lethal,
but not by the mechan probably not by the mechanism
usually used to explain it, but that doesn't make it
any less dangerous.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
Yeah, putting a strong do not attempt at home warning
on this one.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
Yeah. Uh. And then also listener Lex wrote in to
share this information, noting that the myth was tested not
once actually, but twice on MythBusters because they came back
to it in one of their revisited episodes where they
painted the other guy gold. They painted Adam gold also
because you both got to get painted gold.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Once, okay, so that the on site medics were like, Okay,
you can do it one more time. All right.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
Well, that suggests to me that it's, you know, not advisable,
but not so incredibly dangerous that they wouldn't wouldn't try it.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Yeah, but still do not attempt.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
Yeah, all right.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
This one, next one that comes to us from Joe.
This one. This one's pretty fun. This is a response
to a recent artifact Shorty episode Having to do It
is really the second artifact Shorty that I've done on
gadget canes. And if you didn't listen to that one
or the older one, go back. But basically it comes
down to the fact that sword canes became popular essentially
(30:22):
because wearing an open weapon became kind of frowned upon,
so like hide that lethal blade. And then people got
into putting all sorts of things in their canes as
a gimmick, you know, like little things like they would
often line up with your occupation. Like I covered a
fiddle that was hidden in a cane. It's not a
good fiddle, it's it's just a novelty. But you can
(30:44):
imagine a scenario where oh, you know, he likes to
play the fiddle, he needs a cane. Now he has
a fiddle cane and it's what it was fashionable.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
Yeah, got a dental drill cane.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Or yeah, all sorts of stuff and then we talked.
We talked. Was a Benjamin Franklin and had a practical application.
He had oil and in his cane at what a
bamboo walking stick? Oh yeah, so sometimes there's a semi
practical reason for it. But anyway, listener, Joe writes in
and says, love your artifacts episode on the myriad use
(31:13):
of canes for discrete purposes. As a blind man that
uses a white cane to orient and maneuver through the world,
I like to share a tidbit with curious individuals asking
about my stick. I let them know how the white
cane is actually recognized as a protected federally regulated safety device,
and because of such, my cane is allowed to have
(31:35):
a small three inch retractable blade in the top in
the handle all white canes do. And invariably when they
ask me really, I tell them no, not really. But hey,
please help me propagate this rumor because maybe you'll help.
You'll be helping keep a blind or visually impaired safe
person safe. One day, some mugger remembers hearing the Old
(31:55):
wives tale of blind guys with knives in their canes. Anyway,
thought it was appropriate and wanted to share all the best.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Thank you, Joe. That's a good strategy. Yeah, so the
doubt and the fun jet I like that. All right,
let's do a few responses to our Polywater series. This
was a series of episodes we did in January about
(32:22):
a revolutionary physical substance called polywater, which a bunch of
people in the nineteen sixties and early seventies became convinced
did exist, but which it later turned out definitely did
not exist. Polywater was supposedly a polymer like arrangement of
water which took on a jellied or wax like consistency
(32:43):
at room temperature, but again, of course, it never existed,
and by the early to mid seventies, skeptical scientists had
proved that it was largely the product of just contaminated
experimental samples. And this historical saga led into a discussion
on our show about a concept known as pathological science.
(33:03):
So we got into the question of how researchers can
be led into delusion and compounding error like a paper
talking about common features of programs that go haywire in
this way, and then we also did a segment about
historical cases of scientific research containment panic when people get
the idea for valid reasons or not a lot of
(33:25):
times not for valid reasons, but sometimes with legitimate cause
for concern, when they get the idea that a specific
research program will lead to worldwide calamity if pursued or
if it gets out of hand. This was related to
polywater because some researchers in the late sixties proposed that
if a molecule of polywater got out of the lab
(33:47):
and into the soil or the natural water supply, it
would lead to an apocalyptic scenario like the end of
Kurt Vonnegut's novel Cat a cat's cradle where all of
the world's water is frozen at room temperature and is
made biologically useless. In this case, we imagined a bizarre
wax world where all the water is turned to a
waxy consistency. Wouldn't be a good thing to happen. Fortunately,
(34:10):
there was no danger of this because again polywater isn't real.
But anyway, one of the research panic episodes that we
talked about in this discussion was when some people got
the idea for not good reasons in this case, that
activation of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN would create
black holes that would consume planet Earth. And it turned
(34:33):
out physicists had already modeled this and they ruled out.
They ruled that there was no danger of this happening.
But our longtime listener and frequent correspondent Jim gets in
touch on this subject. This is from Jim in New
Jersey who says, Robert, Joe, and JJ you mentioned the
concern that the Large Hadron Collider might destroy the Earth.
Fortunately we can check for that at has the Large
(34:54):
Hadron Collider destroyed the Earth destroyed the world? Yet dot
com so they got a dot com domain there not
a dot org. That's interesting, and Jim says, last I checked,
We're good. I went to check this website out, and
Rabbi attached a screenshot of the homepage as of this morning.
It's a big black screen with white text that says nope.
(35:16):
And Jim has pointed out some embedded HTML from this
page that includes I think it's JavaScript saying like if
and then the variable is world has ended right up,
and then you know else write nope the script ends.
And then also the page contains some other you know,
(35:38):
embedded text that says something about if a giant laser
eyed bunny has destroyed the world, you can email this
email address to get a refund, I guess for a
refund for being an earthling. I think.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
So.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
I actually didn't figure out what that second thing is about.
I don't know if the laser eyed bunny is anything,
or if that's just a mockery of the idea that
the af Dron collider would destroy the world. But anyway, yes,
thank you for letting us know, Jim.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
All right, This next one comes to us from Taylor,
and this is responding to our episode on a let's
see what do we call this one? It was biophilian
Pokemon or something to that effect. Taylor, Right, Hello, Rob, Joe,
and JJ. Having previously volunteered myself as stuffed to blow
(36:29):
your mind's unofficial Pokemon correspondent, and written multiple listener mails
about Pokemon, recently about the surreal Pokemon god arseius if
I'm I'm not sure I'm pronouncing that one correctly, but
this is a big one. It's central to one of
the video games. I was stoked to see this episode
arrive in my feed. I am a lifelong Pokemon fan
and a professional naturalist and conservationist. I was born in
(36:53):
nineteen ninety six, the same year that the original Pokemon
video games were released, making both them and I late malis.
For as long as I can remember, I have been
obsessed with both Pokemon and the natural world. As I
have grown and my interests have evolved, my love of
nature and my love of Pokemon have continually fed into
each other, and I am by no means alone in this.
(37:14):
In my interactions with friends and colleagues in my field,
I've come to realize that within my generation, the proportion
of zoology professionals, paleontologists, taxonomists, wildlife biologists, and naturalists who
are also Pokemon fans is wildly high. Whether this relationship
is causal or correlative is another question, but I can
confirm from first hand observation that it's very real. I
(37:38):
currently work as a naturalist and educator at the Minnesota
Minnesota Zoo, where one of my responsibilities is to write
educational curriculum for summer camps that we host. I am
currently in the process of revising a Pokemon themed zoology
summer camp that the Zoo has been hosting for several years.
This camp is the brain child of several of my
coworkers and I, who suffer, as y'all might put it,
(38:01):
a chronic Pokemon infection. The summer camp is dedicated to
comparing and contrasting the world of Pokemon with our own
natural world, using the Goliath franchise as a springboard to
discuss real world biology and natural diversity. Campers in the
class collect Pokemon in a pokedex they illustrate by observing
their natural world parallels around the zoo, marrying the creature
(38:24):
collecting mechanic of the games with naturalist observations. They also
learn the ways in which real world evolution differs from
evolution in the Pokemon games, pokemon evolution is better likened
to the real world phenomenon of metamorphosis. Quote, Fully evolved
Pokemon lay eggs that hatch into their unevolved states, indicating
(38:46):
that this is an adult slash juvenile relationship. The three
stages of many insects and amphibiuan Pokemon directly mirror real
world examples of metamorphosis. To the credit of these first
and second graders, very few fail to grasp distinction others
mileage may vary, but for me and many scientists and
science educators of my generation, the relationship between Pokemon and
(39:08):
naturalism is not one of competition, but of beautiful symbiosis.
I hope you've enjoyed my unapologetically nerdy perspective. I know
it has a home among the wonderful community surrounding the show.
As ever, thank you so much for your fantastic intersectional
dives into subjects mundane and marvelous. Sincerely, Taylor.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
Wow, thank you, Taylor. That's great to hear. I mean,
that's funny, that sort of exactly the question we're exploring
in the episode. So you're living it, you are, you
are the phenomenon. And then Rob I don't know whether
you want to get into these, but Taylor included a
number of postscripts.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Yeah, let's take a look at these postscripts. Some of
these might just be for us. Let's see there is
a he does point out that. Let's see, here's one.
Joe joked about peach baby Pikachu being an artifact of
our current moment akin to Baby Yoda. Piachu is old
enough to rent a car. This Pokemon has been around
since the second generation of Pokemon games in nineteen ninety nine.
(40:08):
We're currently at the end of the ninth generation, anticipating
the tenth generation this fall of twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3 (40:14):
I stand corrected, Baby Pikachu is older than Baby Yoda.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
All right, here's another one. I do remember this question
coming up of fish are on fish Pokemon. In the anime,
fish Pokemon generally don't battle out of water when engaging
in a water battle. In the games, swimming Pokemon swim,
and terrestrial Pokemon fight from inflatable rats. It's very silly
on land fully aquatic Pokemon magically swim through the air levitating.
(40:41):
We just kind of suspend our disbelief on this one.
An exception that breaks the fourth wall is the Pokemon
Magic Harp, a fish Pokemon known for being completely useless
see the Magic Carp song in battle. Magic Harp is
only capable of using the move splash, which it helps
in which it helplessleave flops around on the ground. This
(41:02):
is the main one I was familiar with because this
was shown to me at some point and it was hilarious.
So I didn't know if they all behaved like magic
Harp or not. But now we have a complete answer.
Speaker 3 (41:11):
But wait, I have a long ago memory of some
episodes we did about that involved leaping fish, I think,
and in that we got into the idea of a
myth or a legend, I think a Chinese legend about
the carp that leaps over the rainbow or the carp
that leaps up the waterfall or something turning into a dragon.
(41:34):
And then I remember a listener got in touch with
us to let us know that there is a Pokemon
equivalent of this. There's like, oh, I think it was
magic Harp. I don't know. I'm out of my depth
here because I don't know Pokemon, but that's my memory.
It was magic Harp that leaps over something and turns
into a dragon. Does this ring a bell for you.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Yeah, it faintly does, but I do not have a
strong memory of this. Folks.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
We just got an update from our resident Pokemon expert
our producer JJ, who says that yes, Magic Harp does
evolve into the powerful dragon form Pokemon giri Dos. Do
I say that right?
Speaker 2 (42:09):
I hope? So? Uh?
Speaker 3 (42:10):
And yeah, so uh what I said was at least
partially correct. Okay, update number two, JJ, just let us
know that actually we're gonna get some well actually is
about that because there is such a thing called a
dragon type Pokemon, and gied Doos might not be one
of those. Is maybe like water or something else. So
(42:30):
I'm just making I'm making a mess everywhere I go here.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
We just got to get JJ on the mic for
some Pokemon discussions at some point.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
Hey, yeah, okay, Rob, do you mind if I read
another message about polywater?
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 3 (42:43):
Okay. This one is from Tanner, subject line real life Polywater. Greetings, gentlemen,
it's great to see you on the small screen. It's
always interesting to compare what we think people look like
based on their voices and what they actually look like.
I had seen your photos from the Museum of illusions,
(43:04):
but seeing y'all in motion is a little surreal. Lol. Well, yeah,
I hope we can. I hope we're weird enough for you. Man. Yeah,
let's see. Tanner says, I think I have two examples
of polywater, one real, one fictional. The fictional one comes
from the Three Body Problem trilogy by Sitchin lou The End.
(43:26):
It is the dual vector Foil. It's a weapon fired
at solar systems with tech signals by advanced alien species
as a preemptive strike. Once the weapon enters the Solar system,
it expands and accelerates towards and through the Solar System,
collapsing all matter into a lower dimension. Planets become massive discs,
(43:46):
and then rings of color beings caught in it flatten
and freeze, and stars collapse and spoilers for the end
of the trilogy. Well you know, warning, folks, spoilers are incoming.
Since these weapons have infinite range, they eventually convert all
matter into two dimensions.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
Oh wow, I did not get that far in the trilogy.
I read the first.
Speaker 3 (44:07):
Book and for the real example of polywater. Preons, like
polywater and ice nine. Preons are alternative isomers of healthy
proteins that are capable of spreading themselves by contacting normal molecules,
since they're chemically identical to Since they're chemically identical, the
(44:27):
conditions that cause them to de nature are very similar
to healthy ones, and the new structure is biologically inactive,
if not actively fatal. Thanks for all the insightful content
you produce. Cheers, uh, and let's see. Oh. Tanner also
asks for the discord link. So I assume we sent
it to Tanner, but I.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
Will probably did. But if I ever fail to send it,
ask me again. Sometimes sometimes we.
Speaker 3 (44:54):
Get a lot of email folks. Yeah, so sometimes we
don't get a chance to replies off as we'd like.
So yeah, please, if you don't hear back and you
want the discord link, send it again.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
All right, Well, let's go ahead and look at some
weird house cinema listener mail here. Let's see what we have.
All right, Let's go ahead and read one here from Chris,
subject the Ankle Snatcher. Chris writes, good day, In case
the bugins didn't hit your quota for ankle snatching, I
(45:27):
wanted to recommend a Grady Hendrick short story called The
Ankle Snatcher. I found it in the Best American Science
Fiction and Fantasy twenty twenty four, and it's been haunting
me ever since. Also, it may be too recent for
Weird House Cinema, but I have to recommend a movie
called The Man Who Killed Hitler and then The Bigfoot.
I consider it an honorary Vonnegut story. Best wishes, Chris.
Speaker 3 (45:49):
I have not seen that movie, but I've encountered the
title and I was puzzled.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
I've heard good things about it. I've also heard that
it's not like it's kind of a goofy sounding title,
and it maybe sounds a little more absurdist than it
actually is. But I've heard good things about it. Okay, Yeah,
and as for the Ankle Scratcher here, if I'm not mistaken,
it looks like some form of adaptation is in the works.
I see it listen on IMDb. I don't know if
(46:16):
that's a film, a short film. Could be a podcast
or a video game for all I know, but maybe
something is brewing in the Ankle Snatcher universe.
Speaker 3 (46:26):
Okay, all right, This next message is from Jay, subject
line the Blob. Hi, guys, on your recent Weird House Cinema,
you were asking which blob version you should cover Oh yeah,
the nineteen fifties or sixties one, the older one or
the one from the eighties. Jay says, I think it
(46:48):
would be fun and weird to cover them both in
the same episode. Calm down, Jay, Jay says, keep up
the fantastic work. It sustains a lot of us through
these twisting times. We're trying. We're all trying, Jay. Yea,
but yeah, it's uh. That would be a lot to
do in one episode. The episode weird how someone can
(47:11):
run long even covering one movie, So I think we
would probably break it up into two episodes.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
We've only ever successfully done one episode that covered two movies,
and those were like short, silent films as that.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
Recalls, yeh oh, where we did Ashen Puttle and The
Mechanical Man.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
Yeah. Yeah, So for that to work, they need to
be short and have no words in them. So it's
possible we could do something like that again, but not
with two feature length films. That would be crazy.
Speaker 3 (47:37):
Okay, Rob your pick, select the next one here.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
Oh, let's say I think we had a one here
that I was taken with. Let's say, ah, oh, this
one's this one's good. Okay, this one comes to us
from Jeff. Jeff says, Hi, guys, big weird House fan here.
I love to track down these films to watch before
(48:02):
listening to your commentary. Lots of fun. I have a
suggestion for you. Millennium nineteen eighty nine. Chris Christofferson is
investigating a plane crash when he meets Cheryl Ladd, who
is a time traveler from an apocalyptic future. There's lots
of weirdness to enjoy, including a freaky looking humanoid robot.
This one is directed by Michael Anderson, who did Logan's
(48:22):
Run seventy six, another possible candidate for Weird House. Keep
up the good work well. Logan's Run seventy six is
a favorite of mine and one we may very well
come back to. Millennium I've never seen I remember when
it came out, and it definitely has a cool cast
and the stills look interesting. But I mostly remember this
(48:44):
film because of a sketch on The Kids in the
Hall in which Scott Thompson's buddy Cole is doing a
monologue and he's talking a little bit about differences between
Canada and America and talks about the film and TV
industry and anyway, there's a where Buddy Cole was talking
about having been in Millennium. Scott Thompson, the actor playing
(49:06):
Buddy Cole, actually was. So Cole tells us, I'm going
to quote the skit here. I'm in this new American picture, Millennium.
It's a big budget science fiction thriller starring Cheryl Ladd.
You see, one day some American thought, hey, I want
to make a terrible movie in Canada. Everybody else has.
I play the best friend of the timegate operator. He
(49:27):
has one line, but he says it directly to me.
This movie is full of Canadian actors with one line.
It's great. It won't make a dime.
Speaker 3 (49:38):
So I want to cry. That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (49:41):
Yeah, that's the main thing that sticks out to me
about Millennium. But yeah, we could come back and do Millennium. Plus, hey,
Scott Thompson is in it. I love it when there's
a you know, a star hidden in there somewhere, or
future star if you will.
Speaker 3 (49:55):
All right, well, this has been a good mailbag, but
I think we have to call it there.
Speaker 2 (49:58):
All right, sounds good, going to go ahead and close it up,
but yeah, right in, we would love to hear from
you out there again. Just a reminder. Stuff Well in
Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast. Core
episodes Tuesdays and Thursdays, Friday's Weird House Cinema short form
episode on Wednesdays. Yeah, and I don't know if there's
anything else we really need to cover here, but I
guess we'll go ahead and throw it out. If you've
(50:19):
made it this far through the through the listener mail episode, hey,
make sure you rate interview where if you have the
ability to do that, give us some stars, thumbs up,
two thumbs up. I don't know. Every platform is a
little different, but whatever it is, we greatly appreciate the support.
Speaker 3 (50:34):
Yeah, if you want to help us out, subscribe wherever
you get your audio podcasts. And if you're watching us
on Netflix, click remind me so we pop up in
your feed when we release a new video episode. So
I guess that does it 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,
(50:56):
or just to say hello, you can email us at
contact Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1 (51:07):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hey you, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind listener Mail.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
My name is Robert Lamb and I am Joe McCormick,
and every so often on the Stuff to Blow Your
Mind podcast we do an episode like this where we
read back messages from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind
email address. We usually give it at the end of
every episode, but we'll give it at the top of
this one. If you have never gotten in touch before,
you should give it a try. It's contact at stuff
(00:35):
to Blow your Mind dot com. All types of messages
are welcome. Of course, we always appreciate feedback to recent
episodes or older episodes if you want so. If you've
got a correction that you need to give on something
we said in an episode, obviously please send it our way.
We always want to make sure we're getting all the
facts right. But if you have something interesting to add
(00:56):
to a topic we've talked about, something we did not
get into in an episode series that would add to
the subject, that's bullseye. That's exactly what we want kind
of build on what we've done here in our listener
mail episodes. Also, just any general feedback. If you want
to suggest a topic for the future, suggest a movie
for Weird House Cinema, or just say hi, tell us
an interesting story, whatever suits you. Contact at stuff to
(01:20):
Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
You can also email us at that address and ask
for the invite link for our discord server, which is
intentionally kept kind of like tight knit. But if you
just email us and ask for the invite code, we'll
send it your way and you can give it a shot.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
So let's see, Rob, are you good? If we kick
things off with responses to our crab bag series.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
We absolutely should kick off with craps.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
So this was a recent roundup we did of all
kinds of topics related to crabs, crab stuff, biological, behavioral, technological, metaphorical,
and spiritual. And this series was in part requested by
a listen our listener, Hannah, who did get in touch
after we started the series with an email subject line
(02:06):
OMG OMG OMG crabs and then the body just said
thank you, So you're welcome, Hannah. But I figure I'm
going to kick things off after this with a message
from Hugh and this is responding to our story about
the miracle crab of Saint Francis Xavier, which, according to legend,
(02:27):
took hold of a crucifix that had been lost in
a storm at sea, and then brought that crucifix, raised
in its claws, back to its owner, Saint Francis, once
he had landed on shore. So, Hugh says, dear Robert,
Joe and JJ, do you think Xavier's crab booked it
(02:48):
that entire way or was maybe a relay situation. Yeah,
I didn't think about that. The crabs are working together.
That did come up later, and actually later in the
first episod, right, the question of whether crabs are ever
cooperative or whether it's always just one crab for themselves.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah, I don't know. I guess this comes into the
imagined religious views of crabs. Are the crabs of the ocean?
Are they one body of Christ? Are they one people
who would do this? Or is this one crab an outlier?
Are the rest of the crabs like atheist crabs? And
this one crab has become faithful and participates in this miracle.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
That one Catholic crab the one that will go and
preach to the nations of crabs. Yeah. Oh, and I
forgot to set this up. But in this email, Hugh
also makes reference to something where in this classic Renaissance
painting of this miracle story where the crab is coming
on shore, the crab is holding the crucifix up in
(03:50):
the air above its body. And I was looking at
this painting and I was like, why does this look
so familiar? And I realized it looks exactly like the
original theatrical release poster for Star Wars that has an illustrated,
very muscly rendition of Mark Hamill holding the lightsaber up
above his head. It's uncanny the resemblance, very very similar.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Tom Young, the artist who did the famous poster, by
the way, a pretty accomplished Chinese American post poster art artist.
Pretty great stuff.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
It's a classic, even if it does give a different
kind of vibe than the movie, like it may it
makes it makes Luke Skywalker look like Conan the Barbaria
instead of like, you know, you're supposed to be kind
of a kid who's just looking for adventure. Yeah, But anyway,
Hugh makes reference to that part of the episode, saying, also,
I had always seen that Star Wars poster as an
(04:40):
homage to Frank Frazetta. Maybe Frank got the idea from
the painting you referenced. Congratulations on the Netflix gig. Thanks, huh,
You're all doing a great job, Hugh. So, I actually
did not know Frank Frazetta, at least my name, well
not my name. Once I looked it up, I was like, oh,
I recognize this style. So it is the classic paperback
(05:03):
fantasy book cover style where you got hot barbarians and
loincloth and metal bikinis, and you get weird monsters and
beasts bristling, a lot of muscles and gleaming weapons and
just bodies. And the figures in these in these illustrations
have a lot of I was trying to think what
(05:23):
to call this. They just have a lot of poise.
They're like they they look like like statues in motion
kind of. They're radiating strength and victory.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Yeah. Yeah, I've never really attempted to put any of
it in words concerning Frank Fazeta, but you know, I've
been I've been a fan of Frank Vizzeta for ages,
and I think I follow the official Frank Fazeta Instagram account,
so I keep bombarding myself with images of his and
sometimes ones that I've never seen before, but yeah, there's
something about his work. I mean, you know, he was
(05:54):
great at capturing the human form and admired it greatly.
And sometimes those human forms are not even wearing loincloths
or metal bikinis. Sometimes they are naked. But then also
all of these fantasy elements and sci fi elements that
were you know, you know, a part of the commercial
aspect of so many of these works. And there is
(06:15):
that sense of movement, And I don't necessarily have the
artistic language in my head to describe all of this,
but there is a sense of like culmination and rising
and physical movement, like the muscles that you see and
the bones, like they all seem to be biologically active
(06:38):
and some rippling.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Yeah yeah, yeah, so yeah, very much concerned with strength
and sexiness and weirdness all coming together.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Yeah, And it is a style that is so attached
to a specific time, Like anytime I see Frank Fizzetta,
I also want to see that work on the side
of a van, some sort of a wizard van roaring
down a nineteen seventies highway.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Sometimes I think, like, if I had a billion dollars,
what's the first thing I'd get, Like a wizard Van
get that air brushed out real good. But yeah, anyways,
so I h I was like, wait a minute, did
Frank Frazetta ever do a crab?
Speaker 2 (07:17):
You know?
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Good question? So I googled Frank Frizzetta crab. Did not
find anything that looked authentic. There were some grotesque looking,
smoothed out AI imitations that I hated, but so far
as I know, he never did any crab stuff.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
I'm going to be on the lookout now because again
I regularly bombard myself with for Zetta images, So if
a crab pope pops up, I will report on it
here and listeners. If you know of a Frank Fazzeta
crab work, send it in. Yeah. This is fun because
I was just the other day. I was looking through
some titles for some Clark Ashton Smith short stories and
(07:51):
I found one that has crabs in the title and
in the plot, and I've never read it before. So
I'm like, okay, I'm going to cue this up. The
crabs crabs await us everywhere, even in places we thought
we'd fully explore.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Was it called like the Magic of Crabs or Master
of Crabs? Master of Crabs?
Speaker 2 (08:08):
So I think it's dueling wizards and crabs, but I
haven't I haven't read it yet, but it's it's cue up.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Dear God, it's made for me. Well, I'm going to
go read it whenever I get a chance. Here, let's see, Rob,
do you want to do this message from Nathan?
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Yes? Uh oh this yeah, I'm going in cold on
this one. I did not read this one when it
came in, got lost in the shuffle. But Nathan comes
at us with the subject why is a raven like
a writing desk? This is a reference. I forget even
how this came up.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
But I've actually got a note about this.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Okay, good, good, Yeah, I'll start reading and then you
can jump in with clarification. Okay, Dear Rob, Joe and JJ.
At the end of part four of your Crab brag
Bag Crab grab Bag episodes, you brought up the question
why is a raven like a writing desk? As an
(08:59):
example of a riddle with no clear answer, as if
it were designed to start arguments.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
So I also at first couldn't remember how we got there,
and I had to look it up. But this came
up because you were talking about Japanese folk tales in
which a crab asks riddles and then kills you if
you don't answer correctly. Usually the answer to the riddle
is crab, you know, like describes a creature and then
you're like, what am I? And the person is supposed
(09:25):
to guess crab, but they usually don't. And this led
to us talking about whether nefarious crabs of some kind
could be behind the social media strategy where people post
riddles that don't actually have answers. In this case, it's
to get people confused and make them waste a lot
of time engaging with a post on social media or
(09:46):
like arguing in the comments, And the purpose of this
is engagement farming, trying to game the system on these
you know, horrible social algorithms. But this led to Rob
mentioning the riddle why is a raven like a writing desk,
which obviously predates social media, but the through line was
that this is also a riddle without a clear intended answer, or.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
At least that's the way I always thought of it. Again,
this is a This just pops up in the last Unicorn,
if I remember correctly, Yeah, yeah, And then Nathan goes
on to clarify Rob mentioned its use in the film
The Last Unicorn, but this riddle originally comes from Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland, Okay, written by Lewis Carroll in eighteen
sixty five. The Mad Hatter asked this of Alice during
(10:29):
the Mad Tea party. He doesn't wait for an answer
before the conversation moves on, but when Alice asks for
the answer later, he replies, I haven't the slightest idea.
See now, I'm wondering if it actually is in the
Last Unicorn, and if I'm not misremembering something from Alice
in Wonderland. Oh, Okay, who knows. I have a feeling
we'll come back around to The Last Unicorn on Weird
(10:49):
House Cinema at some point in the future, so we'll
figure that out then. Okay, But anyway, more answers from
Nathan here he continues. According to The nit Alice by
Martin Gardner, Carol wrote the riddle with no answer in mind,
but that didn't stop many readers from suggesting their own.
There are too many proposed solutions to list in full.
(11:10):
But here are some better ones. Okay, here we.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Go, or some better I think, better known ones.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Better known ones, yes, yeah, okay, this one from Sam
Lloyd because Poe wrote on both that's good. Okay, yeah, yeah, okay,
that that checks out. I had to think about it
for a second. Both have inky quills. Hmm yeah, okay, yeah,
or maybe all right. One is a rest for pins.
The other is a pest for wrens with a w Okay,
(11:40):
that's clever. That's clever. That one does a few backflips
in that one, which I like. Okay, here's one. This
one comes. This one was apparently attributed to Alba Sucksley.
Because there is a B in both and an inn
in neither.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
I don't get that.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
I don't get anything. That's that's the way Homer. We're
gonna have to think about that.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
There is an N in both writing desk and raven,
and there is not a bee in either one. So
I don't I'm not following. There's some kind of irony
here that's gone past me.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
But there is a bee in the word both, and
there's an N in the word neither. Yeah, okay, oh,
this one was. Here's an answer that came there was
presented in Stephen King's The Shining. This is a book
I read in junior high. So it's been a long time.
But this answer is the higher the fewer. Of course,
(12:29):
the higher the fewer.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Okay, that one's gone past me.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Oh wait, wait, Nathan says, this is actually the answer
to an entirely different nonsense riddle, when is a mouse
if it spins?
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Okay, I still don't get it, Okay.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
They continue. In the preface of the eighteen ninety six
edition of the book, Carroll himself finally included his own
solution to the riddle, while acknowledging it was just an
after that quote because it can produce a few notes,
though they are very flat, and it is never put
with the wrong end. First, Carol intentionally misspelled the word
(13:05):
never as n e v a r raven spelled backwards,
but later printers corrected the spelling to any v e
r and so the punchline was lost in translation, or
rather in transcription. Thanks as always for your delightful and
insightful podcast, Nathan, Thank you, Nathan. Yeah, that's that's that's
I again. I'm not entirely sure now if this poem,
(13:28):
I mean, this riddle is reference in the Last Unicorn.
Maybe I was misremembering it from else Adventures in Wonderland,
But at any rate, This was a lot of fun
going through these supposed answers to it.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
My favorite is Poe wrote on both that's.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Good, that's good. Yeah, Yeah, one is a pet, one
is a rest for pens and the other pets for rinds.
I will also.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
Exactly yeah, thumbs up. Yeah, okay, you want me to
do this one from.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Chris, Let's do it?
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Chris says, oh. Subject line Mysteries and Crabs Robert and
Joe while enjoying the Vault, episode three of Mystery Cults,
focusing in part on the experiences associated with them being
less about appeasing deities but more about becoming part of
the mortal's identity and possibly a combination of revelation and inspiration.
(14:21):
I was struck by the example of the goddess Demeter's
daughter Persephone and her eating food while in hades and
it's binding her there. It reminded me of Hyamiyazaki's excellent
Spirited Away, in which a family inadvertently travels to a
spirit realm, where the parents eat at an empty restaurant
and are turned into pigs by a resident for their transgression. Yeah,
(14:44):
they eat of the food of the spirit world, and
thus they are trapped there. I don't remember crabs being
part of their meal, so there is no connection to
the Crabbag episodes that I'm aware of. However, Crabbag episode
three and your discussion of crabs as inspiration for military
devices an inventor is writing directly to President Lincoln. And
the mention of balloons used during the Civil War did
(15:06):
bring to mind Jules Verne's Mysterious Island, in which balloonists
blown to an island in the South Pacific did encounter
a giant crab, among other things, at least in the
nineteen sixty one si Infield film version. Keep out the
good work, and maybe iHeart will finally give you, gentlemen,
that squad of research assistants and librarians you deserve. Chris, Yes,
(15:29):
it's a long shot. I keep requesting them. I want
them to be like the Dwarves and the Phantasm movies,
except they do research for us. Yeah. This is kind
of a yeah, a peek into behind the scenes discussions.
You know, We've talked about this before, and I feel
like part of the problem is that the research process
is sort of how we create the product. Like a
(15:51):
lot of what we end up talking about is not
just presenting information, but talking about the process of learning
about a subject, which you only really get if you
do the research yourself.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
So yeah, and finding the little the little research conduits
that that speak to us individually. It leads us in
some of our some of our favorite areas in the podcast,
you know, some of our favorite discussions and uh and
subtopics have been just because we've followed our own particular
interests while researching. And you know, you might get that
(16:26):
if you had a really good research You know, certainly
there's plenty of podcasters out there and writers and so
forth use researchers and make good use of their their talents.
And I don't know, maybe we're just stubborn and we
should we should give it a shot. But h but
this is what we've done so far.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Oh but coming back to Jules Verne and the Mysterious Island,
I don't think I ever read that book. If I did,
for some reason, I have a weak memory of it,
but I uh don't think and I don't think i've
seen the movie either. But it's one of those stories
I just have a vague general awareness of. And I
was thinking about a giant crab there.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Yeah, Yeah, I have seen a giant crab scene because
it's got a big of stop motion crabs. But yeah,
I haven't seen the film in full.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
All right, well, Rob, you want to pick. We don't
have to do these in order pick pick whatever you
want for the.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Next Yeah, this next one's highly visual. It's gonna be
lost on nearly everyone. Even if you have video, you're
not gonna see this image, I guess. But at any rate,
this one comes to us from Sir Eel, subject crabstab.
They write as follows. Was doodling whilst listening to the
first two episodes of Crab grab Bag and the Saint
(17:29):
Francis story. That was that was an interesting subject. Note
the crab is no particular species and the crucifix is
of no particular denomination. Thank you for the years of
brain food and many more to come, sincerely, Sir Eel.
And then we have this nice tight little sketch here
of a crab species unknown holding crucifix denomination unknown that
(17:54):
has a Christ crucified on it.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
This crab is holding it overhead on its side, rather
than straight up as in the Xavier image imagery that
we were talking about.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Yeah, the painting we saw the crab is holding it
straight up like the lightsaber in the Star Wars poster,
so it's vertical orientation. But yeah, this makes more sense.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
And we also have a sort of a New York
Times style caption here, keep your junk out of my yard,
which I like. That's fun.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
Yeah. I will note that if this is supposed to
be a crucifix crab, I think the crucifix crab has
the little backweg legs or the swimmer legs, not the
walking legs like this. I'm not trying to criticize, sir Eel.
I appreciate the illustration. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
It's a miracle crab. You know who knows what it's for.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Miss Yeah, okay, let's see. I'll do this message from
Carrie Carrie right oh, subject line bass awkward horseshoe crabs.
This message is about the story we talked about in
Crabbag Part three, where a guy known only by the
initial C. D K wrote a marvelous letter to the
(19:02):
Scientific American. This was during the Civil War, and the
letter advocated that the Union Navy construct a giant steam
powered horseshoe crab called the King Crab Warship, which would
be invincible would be the ultimate naval technology, though there
were some details of both biology and technology in this
letter that seemed a little fuzzy, and CDK writes not
(19:27):
CDK sorry, Carry rights, Rob and Joe. Hearing cdk's description
of his idea contained in the Scientific American of a
ramming weapon modeled on the horseshoe crab, I get the
feeling that he never actually saw the animal in life.
That's the possibility. His description of the pointed prow, the
(19:48):
back being wedge shaped, the bow armored with a row
of smaller spikes, and the ability to raise and lower
its front makes me think that he was confused and
thought that the back end of the crab was actually
the front end. Yeah, we sort of came to the
same conclusion, and that's what it sounded like, Carrie says,
when you look at a horseshoe crab this way, his
(20:09):
description makes sense. The crab's rear end is pointed, its
actual head is wedge shaped, there is a row of
backwards pointing spikes, and the telson can lift the backside.
Just an observation. I thought, I chair take care, Carrie, carry.
I think you're I think you're dead. On on that
that that was my reading as well.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Yeah, so like inverted biommicry, here you venture into your
design using backwards understanding of the organism.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Though. I do love this as like a you know,
an idea that aliens come to Earth and look at
all these quadrupedal mammals and they all think that the
tails are a like spike coming out of the face,
and they're like, wow, they have all of these sensory
organs on their butts. That's so interesting.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
All right, let's been shrew on to an other one.
This one's really good. It concerns lily Putian hallucinations, so
this doesn't really concern crabs. I don't as possible crabs
will come up in the comment, but I don't think
they will. This one comes to us from a repeat correspondent, Renata,
and it goes as follows, Hi, Robin Joe. When I
(21:25):
saw there was an episode on lily Putian hallucinations, I
got confused and thought it was going to be about
something else called Alice in Wonderland syndrome. This, by the way,
is also discussed in Oliver Sack's book. Anyway, they continued,
thank you for the great episode. Lily Putian hallucinations are
equally fascinating, and I have a bit of secondhand experience
with that. More on that later. Alice in Wonderland syndrome
(21:49):
involves distorted perceptions of the size of yourself relative to
other objects, and even the size of one of your
body parts relative to one another. Alice's experiences in the
book are caused by a mushroom, but in reality, the
syndrome mainly affects children who have had a serious infection. Thankfully,
it usually doesn't last for most kids. I highly recommend
(22:10):
looking up some of the children's first hand accounts of
their experiences. This might sound mean, but there is something
especially adorable about the way that kids describe this bizarre
and unfamiliar experience, such as, Mommy, why did your hand
turn into a doll hand? If you look up the
very short Wikipedia article on the Lecutian hallucinations, it mentions
Alice in Wonderland's syndrome and a few other related syndromes.
(22:32):
What I find so intriguing about these is what you
brought up in the episode, which is that certain stimuli
can cause highly consistent hallucinations, while other hallucinogens involve a
broader range of altered experiences. Perhaps related is the phenomena
that certain drugs and drug combinations can induce deja vu,
sometimes an overwhelming and upsetting frequency of dejav vu. Now
(22:53):
that's interesting. I wasn't familiar with that myself. Yeah, so
we may have to come back to that. I don't
know that we've.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
We've done something on deja vous before.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Yeah, I don't remember talking about drug interactions or drug
combinations causing it though, Yeah, either, I have to look
into that anyway. I wish more science will be done
to understand these reproducible ways that our senses of reality
can be hindered or altered, as it could lead to
a better understanding of how our conscious perception is constructed.
(23:23):
But it seems like these cases are mostly on the
fringes of science and not study directly. Anyways, back to
lillly Fusian hallucinations. My dad has experienced them. He would
sometimes go walking at dusk or night, and he has
fairly bad eyesight. Not sure walking at night was the
best idea. He doesn't do it anymore. He said that
if he could make out something like a leaf or
(23:45):
a stick, he would see little people crawling on them
and dancing. I had already heard of these types of
hallucinations before and told him it was probably not serious
and not to worry too much. I should ask him
if he still ever experiences them. Truly wonderful, wonderful episodes
late you still find interesting topics and continue to be
delightful and entertaining after so many years.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
The very best renat Thank you, Ranata. Yeah, that's interesting,
and that would match with a lot of the research
we were looking at where Liliputian hallucinations, apart from being
triggered by consuming this particular mushroom in China, a common
way people get to these seems to be conditions affecting
the eye sight, like degeneration of eyesight or low light conditions.
(24:29):
Things that affect the vision itself in some way sometimes
lead to Liliputian hallucinations.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Yeah, yeah, so yeah. I absolutely love this bit of feedback,
and we love in any time we can get this
kind of like in the field response, you know, first
or secondhand, really really helps us understand the topics a
lot more, and I think helps illustrate it for listeners
as well.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Okay, I think I'm going to do a couple of
these messages about gold paint, if that's good with you, Rob, Yeah, yeah.
So in the last Listener Mail episode, read a message
that was following up on a thread about whether a
person will suffocate if they are painted gold like in
the movie Goldfinger. This originally came up in passing on
(25:12):
an episode about the Twilight Zone episode the Rip van
Winkle Caper, and because it was just kind of a
side comment, we actually hadn't researched the answer, but I
guessed that the answer was no, that would not happen
because humans don't actually significantly breathe through their skin. We
breathe through our lungs. But then on the Listener Mail
episode after that, a listener named Brian got in touch
(25:34):
to share a story from history in which a chronicler
of the Medichi family from the sixteenth century claimed, and
this was Brian's description. So, in Brian's words, quote, Pope
Leo the tenth, a Medichi and arguably the worst pope
of all time, had a boy painted fully painted in
gold to celebrate the Pope's return to Florence. The boy
(25:55):
died mere days later. I'm sure the I'm sure paint
in the sixteenth was highly questionable in and of itself,
so presumably any of the substances in the paint could
have been the cause. But yes, we do have death
by gold paint.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Well, this makes me feel a lot better, because you know,
I was doubting the gold finger thing, and I was like,
what else did I learn from bond films that I
now have to unlearn? So this I can breathe a
sigh of relief.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Here the most factual factual of all cannons. Yeah, but
then we talked about, Okay, so we don't know if
this historical story is actually true, but assuming it is true,
my guess was still probably that if this boy died,
it would be from something other than suffocation. I mean,
you could die from other things, yeah, like toxic chemicals
(26:43):
in the paint, or very likely actually from overheating, because
you know, this prevents you from like sweating and letting
heat out through your skin. But again, we breathe mostly
through our lungs, not through our skin, so it didn't
seem like suffocation would be the most likely explanation. But
of course, you know, as always, were open to contradictory evidence.
So we joked then about whether the MythBusters had ever
(27:06):
tried to sort this out and whether such an attempt
would would have involved painting Jamie Gold. Wouldn't you know?
The joke scenario that we conjured up actually happened on
the show and multiple listeners got in touch to let
us know. So this is from Karen. Karen says, Hi,
(27:27):
Robert and Joe. On your recent listener mail episode Lamerte,
you further discussed the possibility of death being caused by
being covered in gold paint, then offhandedly suggested that the
MythBusters may have done it, including joking did they paint
Jamie Gold? Yes to both, They did indeed test this
myth by painting Jamie with gold paint. The plan was
(27:49):
to cover him in paint and have him run on
a treadmill. However, after the latex paint was applied, Jamie
started to show a significant negative reaction. To everyone's surprise,
his blood pressure shot up and he reported feeling generally
ill and lightheaded. Two onset ParaMed two onset paramedics strongly
advised him not to do any strenuous exercise and remove
(28:09):
the paint immediately. The conclusion was that covering the skin
with latex paint caused him to overheat and subsequently feel
ill and stressed in various ways. The episode also featured
Shirley Eton, the actor who who portrayed the gold painted
woman in Goldfinger. Apparently there's an urban legend that she
died during filming as a result of the paint. She
(28:32):
recounted the experience on set, feeling very hot and strange
while being covered in paint, but definitely not dying. And
then Karen provides a link to the full episode and
talks a bit. Oh, and then says, I didn't write
in after you discussed this in the original episode because
I assumed many other people would bystander effect here. So
(28:53):
I'm writing in now in case any in case everyone
else is suffering from a listener male version of the
bystander effect. Oh, I preempted you. Yeah, sorry, Thanks for
the fantastic podcast, Karen.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
There you go that. Yeah, we we just we joked
that this this had possibly happened, and it had happened.
I'm glad nobody died though.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Yeah. So sounds like it could very well be lethal,
but not by the mechan probably not by the mechanism
usually used to explain it, but that doesn't make it
any less dangerous.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
Yeah, putting a strong do not attempt at home warning
on this one.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
Yeah. Uh. And then also listener Lex wrote in to
share this information, noting that the myth was tested not
once actually, but twice on MythBusters because they came back
to it in one of their revisited episodes where they
painted the other guy gold. They painted Adam gold also
because you both got to get painted gold.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Once, okay, so that the on site medics were like, Okay,
you can do it one more time. All right.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
Well, that suggests to me that it's, you know, not advisable,
but not so incredibly dangerous that they wouldn't wouldn't try it.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Yeah, but still do not attempt.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
Yeah, all right.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
This one, next one that comes to us from Joe.
This one. This one's pretty fun. This is a response
to a recent artifact Shorty episode Having to do It
is really the second artifact Shorty that I've done on
gadget canes. And if you didn't listen to that one
or the older one, go back. But basically it comes
down to the fact that sword canes became popular essentially
(30:22):
because wearing an open weapon became kind of frowned upon,
so like hide that lethal blade. And then people got
into putting all sorts of things in their canes as
a gimmick, you know, like little things like they would
often line up with your occupation. Like I covered a
fiddle that was hidden in a cane. It's not a
good fiddle, it's it's just a novelty. But you can
(30:44):
imagine a scenario where oh, you know, he likes to
play the fiddle, he needs a cane. Now he has
a fiddle cane and it's what it was fashionable.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
Yeah, got a dental drill cane.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Or yeah, all sorts of stuff and then we talked.
We talked. Was a Benjamin Franklin and had a practical application.
He had oil and in his cane at what a
bamboo walking stick? Oh yeah, so sometimes there's a semi
practical reason for it. But anyway, listener, Joe writes in
and says, love your artifacts episode on the myriad use
(31:13):
of canes for discrete purposes. As a blind man that
uses a white cane to orient and maneuver through the world,
I like to share a tidbit with curious individuals asking
about my stick. I let them know how the white
cane is actually recognized as a protected federally regulated safety device,
and because of such, my cane is allowed to have
(31:35):
a small three inch retractable blade in the top in
the handle all white canes do. And invariably when they
ask me really, I tell them no, not really. But hey,
please help me propagate this rumor because maybe you'll help.
You'll be helping keep a blind or visually impaired safe
person safe. One day, some mugger remembers hearing the Old
(31:55):
wives tale of blind guys with knives in their canes. Anyway,
thought it was appropriate and wanted to share all the best.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Thank you, Joe. That's a good strategy. Yeah, so the
doubt and the fun jet I like that. All right,
let's do a few responses to our Polywater series. This
was a series of episodes we did in January about
(32:22):
a revolutionary physical substance called polywater, which a bunch of
people in the nineteen sixties and early seventies became convinced
did exist, but which it later turned out definitely did
not exist. Polywater was supposedly a polymer like arrangement of
water which took on a jellied or wax like consistency
(32:43):
at room temperature, but again, of course, it never existed,
and by the early to mid seventies, skeptical scientists had
proved that it was largely the product of just contaminated
experimental samples. And this historical saga led into a discussion
on our show about a concept known as pathological science.
(33:03):
So we got into the question of how researchers can
be led into delusion and compounding error like a paper
talking about common features of programs that go haywire in
this way, and then we also did a segment about
historical cases of scientific research containment panic when people get
the idea for valid reasons or not a lot of
(33:25):
times not for valid reasons, but sometimes with legitimate cause
for concern, when they get the idea that a specific
research program will lead to worldwide calamity if pursued or
if it gets out of hand. This was related to
polywater because some researchers in the late sixties proposed that
if a molecule of polywater got out of the lab
(33:47):
and into the soil or the natural water supply, it
would lead to an apocalyptic scenario like the end of
Kurt Vonnegut's novel Cat a cat's cradle where all of
the world's water is frozen at room temperature and is
made biologically useless. In this case, we imagined a bizarre
wax world where all the water is turned to a
waxy consistency. Wouldn't be a good thing to happen. Fortunately,
(34:10):
there was no danger of this because again polywater isn't real.
But anyway, one of the research panic episodes that we
talked about in this discussion was when some people got
the idea for not good reasons in this case, that
activation of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN would create
black holes that would consume planet Earth. And it turned
(34:33):
out physicists had already modeled this and they ruled out.
They ruled that there was no danger of this happening.
But our longtime listener and frequent correspondent Jim gets in
touch on this subject. This is from Jim in New
Jersey who says, Robert, Joe, and JJ you mentioned the
concern that the Large Hadron Collider might destroy the Earth.
Fortunately we can check for that at has the Large
(34:54):
Hadron Collider destroyed the Earth destroyed the world? Yet dot
com so they got a dot com domain there not
a dot org. That's interesting, and Jim says, last I checked,
We're good. I went to check this website out, and
Rabbi attached a screenshot of the homepage as of this morning.
It's a big black screen with white text that says nope.
(35:16):
And Jim has pointed out some embedded HTML from this
page that includes I think it's JavaScript saying like if
and then the variable is world has ended right up,
and then you know else write nope the script ends.
And then also the page contains some other you know,
(35:38):
embedded text that says something about if a giant laser
eyed bunny has destroyed the world, you can email this
email address to get a refund, I guess for a
refund for being an earthling. I think.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
So.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
I actually didn't figure out what that second thing is about.
I don't know if the laser eyed bunny is anything,
or if that's just a mockery of the idea that
the af Dron collider would destroy the world. But anyway, yes,
thank you for letting us know, Jim.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
All right, This next one comes to us from Taylor,
and this is responding to our episode on a let's
see what do we call this one? It was biophilian
Pokemon or something to that effect. Taylor, Right, Hello, Rob, Joe,
and JJ. Having previously volunteered myself as stuffed to blow
(36:29):
your mind's unofficial Pokemon correspondent, and written multiple listener mails
about Pokemon, recently about the surreal Pokemon god arseius if
I'm I'm not sure I'm pronouncing that one correctly, but
this is a big one. It's central to one of
the video games. I was stoked to see this episode
arrive in my feed. I am a lifelong Pokemon fan
and a professional naturalist and conservationist. I was born in
(36:53):
nineteen ninety six, the same year that the original Pokemon
video games were released, making both them and I late malis.
For as long as I can remember, I have been
obsessed with both Pokemon and the natural world. As I
have grown and my interests have evolved, my love of
nature and my love of Pokemon have continually fed into
each other, and I am by no means alone in this.
(37:14):
In my interactions with friends and colleagues in my field,
I've come to realize that within my generation, the proportion
of zoology professionals, paleontologists, taxonomists, wildlife biologists, and naturalists who
are also Pokemon fans is wildly high. Whether this relationship
is causal or correlative is another question, but I can
confirm from first hand observation that it's very real. I
(37:38):
currently work as a naturalist and educator at the Minnesota
Minnesota Zoo, where one of my responsibilities is to write
educational curriculum for summer camps that we host. I am
currently in the process of revising a Pokemon themed zoology
summer camp that the Zoo has been hosting for several years.
This camp is the brain child of several of my
coworkers and I, who suffer, as y'all might put it,
(38:01):
a chronic Pokemon infection. The summer camp is dedicated to
comparing and contrasting the world of Pokemon with our own
natural world, using the Goliath franchise as a springboard to
discuss real world biology and natural diversity. Campers in the
class collect Pokemon in a pokedex they illustrate by observing
their natural world parallels around the zoo, marrying the creature
(38:24):
collecting mechanic of the games with naturalist observations. They also
learn the ways in which real world evolution differs from
evolution in the Pokemon games, pokemon evolution is better likened
to the real world phenomenon of metamorphosis. Quote, Fully evolved
Pokemon lay eggs that hatch into their unevolved states, indicating
(38:46):
that this is an adult slash juvenile relationship. The three
stages of many insects and amphibiuan Pokemon directly mirror real
world examples of metamorphosis. To the credit of these first
and second graders, very few fail to grasp distinction others
mileage may vary, but for me and many scientists and
science educators of my generation, the relationship between Pokemon and
(39:08):
naturalism is not one of competition, but of beautiful symbiosis.
I hope you've enjoyed my unapologetically nerdy perspective. I know
it has a home among the wonderful community surrounding the show.
As ever, thank you so much for your fantastic intersectional
dives into subjects mundane and marvelous. Sincerely, Taylor.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
Wow, thank you, Taylor. That's great to hear. I mean,
that's funny, that sort of exactly the question we're exploring
in the episode. So you're living it, you are, you
are the phenomenon. And then Rob I don't know whether
you want to get into these, but Taylor included a
number of postscripts.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Yeah, let's take a look at these postscripts. Some of
these might just be for us. Let's see there is
a he does point out that. Let's see, here's one.
Joe joked about peach baby Pikachu being an artifact of
our current moment akin to Baby Yoda. Piachu is old
enough to rent a car. This Pokemon has been around
since the second generation of Pokemon games in nineteen ninety nine.
(40:08):
We're currently at the end of the ninth generation, anticipating
the tenth generation this fall of twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3 (40:14):
I stand corrected, Baby Pikachu is older than Baby Yoda.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
All right, here's another one. I do remember this question
coming up of fish are on fish Pokemon. In the anime,
fish Pokemon generally don't battle out of water when engaging
in a water battle. In the games, swimming Pokemon swim,
and terrestrial Pokemon fight from inflatable rats. It's very silly
on land fully aquatic Pokemon magically swim through the air levitating.
(40:41):
We just kind of suspend our disbelief on this one.
An exception that breaks the fourth wall is the Pokemon
Magic Harp, a fish Pokemon known for being completely useless
see the Magic Carp song in battle. Magic Harp is
only capable of using the move splash, which it helps
in which it helplessleave flops around on the ground. This
(41:02):
is the main one I was familiar with because this
was shown to me at some point and it was hilarious.
So I didn't know if they all behaved like magic
Harp or not. But now we have a complete answer.
Speaker 3 (41:11):
But wait, I have a long ago memory of some
episodes we did about that involved leaping fish, I think,
and in that we got into the idea of a
myth or a legend, I think a Chinese legend about
the carp that leaps over the rainbow or the carp
that leaps up the waterfall or something turning into a dragon.
(41:34):
And then I remember a listener got in touch with
us to let us know that there is a Pokemon
equivalent of this. There's like, oh, I think it was
magic Harp. I don't know. I'm out of my depth
here because I don't know Pokemon, but that's my memory.
It was magic Harp that leaps over something and turns
into a dragon. Does this ring a bell for you.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Yeah, it faintly does, but I do not have a
strong memory of this. Folks.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
We just got an update from our resident Pokemon expert
our producer JJ, who says that yes, Magic Harp does
evolve into the powerful dragon form Pokemon giri Dos. Do
I say that right?
Speaker 2 (42:09):
I hope? So? Uh?
Speaker 3 (42:10):
And yeah, so uh what I said was at least
partially correct. Okay, update number two, JJ, just let us
know that actually we're gonna get some well actually is
about that because there is such a thing called a
dragon type Pokemon, and gied Doos might not be one
of those. Is maybe like water or something else. So
(42:30):
I'm just making I'm making a mess everywhere I go here.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
We just got to get JJ on the mic for
some Pokemon discussions at some point.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
Hey, yeah, okay, Rob, do you mind if I read
another message about polywater?
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 3 (42:43):
Okay. This one is from Tanner, subject line real life Polywater. Greetings, gentlemen,
it's great to see you on the small screen. It's
always interesting to compare what we think people look like
based on their voices and what they actually look like.
I had seen your photos from the Museum of illusions,
(43:04):
but seeing y'all in motion is a little surreal. Lol. Well, yeah,
I hope we can. I hope we're weird enough for you. Man. Yeah,
let's see. Tanner says, I think I have two examples
of polywater, one real, one fictional. The fictional one comes
from the Three Body Problem trilogy by Sitchin lou The End.
(43:26):
It is the dual vector Foil. It's a weapon fired
at solar systems with tech signals by advanced alien species
as a preemptive strike. Once the weapon enters the Solar system,
it expands and accelerates towards and through the Solar System,
collapsing all matter into a lower dimension. Planets become massive discs,
(43:46):
and then rings of color beings caught in it flatten
and freeze, and stars collapse and spoilers for the end
of the trilogy. Well you know, warning, folks, spoilers are incoming.
Since these weapons have infinite range, they eventually convert all
matter into two dimensions.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
Oh wow, I did not get that far in the trilogy.
I read the first.
Speaker 3 (44:07):
Book and for the real example of polywater. Preons, like
polywater and ice nine. Preons are alternative isomers of healthy
proteins that are capable of spreading themselves by contacting normal molecules,
since they're chemically identical to Since they're chemically identical, the
(44:27):
conditions that cause them to de nature are very similar
to healthy ones, and the new structure is biologically inactive,
if not actively fatal. Thanks for all the insightful content
you produce. Cheers, uh, and let's see. Oh. Tanner also
asks for the discord link. So I assume we sent
it to Tanner, but I.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
Will probably did. But if I ever fail to send it,
ask me again. Sometimes sometimes we.
Speaker 3 (44:54):
Get a lot of email folks. Yeah, so sometimes we
don't get a chance to replies off as we'd like.
So yeah, please, if you don't hear back and you
want the discord link, send it again.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
All right, Well, let's go ahead and look at some
weird house cinema listener mail here. Let's see what we have.
All right, Let's go ahead and read one here from Chris,
subject the Ankle Snatcher. Chris writes, good day, In case
the bugins didn't hit your quota for ankle snatching, I
(45:27):
wanted to recommend a Grady Hendrick short story called The
Ankle Snatcher. I found it in the Best American Science
Fiction and Fantasy twenty twenty four, and it's been haunting
me ever since. Also, it may be too recent for
Weird House Cinema, but I have to recommend a movie
called The Man Who Killed Hitler and then The Bigfoot.
I consider it an honorary Vonnegut story. Best wishes, Chris.
Speaker 3 (45:49):
I have not seen that movie, but I've encountered the
title and I was puzzled.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
I've heard good things about it. I've also heard that
it's not like it's kind of a goofy sounding title,
and it maybe sounds a little more absurdist than it
actually is. But I've heard good things about it. Okay, Yeah,
and as for the Ankle Scratcher here, if I'm not mistaken,
it looks like some form of adaptation is in the works.
I see it listen on IMDb. I don't know if
(46:16):
that's a film, a short film. Could be a podcast
or a video game for all I know, but maybe
something is brewing in the Ankle Snatcher universe.
Speaker 3 (46:26):
Okay, all right, This next message is from Jay, subject
line the Blob. Hi, guys, on your recent Weird House Cinema,
you were asking which blob version you should cover Oh yeah,
the nineteen fifties or sixties one, the older one or
the one from the eighties. Jay says, I think it
(46:48):
would be fun and weird to cover them both in
the same episode. Calm down, Jay, Jay says, keep up
the fantastic work. It sustains a lot of us through
these twisting times. We're trying. We're all trying, Jay. Yea,
but yeah, it's uh. That would be a lot to
do in one episode. The episode weird how someone can
(47:11):
run long even covering one movie, So I think we
would probably break it up into two episodes.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
We've only ever successfully done one episode that covered two movies,
and those were like short, silent films as that.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
Recalls, yeh oh, where we did Ashen Puttle and The
Mechanical Man.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
Yeah. Yeah, So for that to work, they need to
be short and have no words in them. So it's
possible we could do something like that again, but not
with two feature length films. That would be crazy.
Speaker 3 (47:37):
Okay, Rob your pick, select the next one here.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
Oh, let's say I think we had a one here
that I was taken with. Let's say, ah, oh, this
one's this one's good. Okay, this one comes to us
from Jeff. Jeff says, Hi, guys, big weird House fan here.
I love to track down these films to watch before
(48:02):
listening to your commentary. Lots of fun. I have a
suggestion for you. Millennium nineteen eighty nine. Chris Christofferson is
investigating a plane crash when he meets Cheryl Ladd, who
is a time traveler from an apocalyptic future. There's lots
of weirdness to enjoy, including a freaky looking humanoid robot.
This one is directed by Michael Anderson, who did Logan's
(48:22):
Run seventy six, another possible candidate for Weird House. Keep
up the good work well. Logan's Run seventy six is
a favorite of mine and one we may very well
come back to. Millennium I've never seen I remember when
it came out, and it definitely has a cool cast
and the stills look interesting. But I mostly remember this
(48:44):
film because of a sketch on The Kids in the
Hall in which Scott Thompson's buddy Cole is doing a
monologue and he's talking a little bit about differences between
Canada and America and talks about the film and TV
industry and anyway, there's a where Buddy Cole was talking
about having been in Millennium. Scott Thompson, the actor playing
(49:06):
Buddy Cole, actually was. So Cole tells us, I'm going
to quote the skit here. I'm in this new American picture, Millennium.
It's a big budget science fiction thriller starring Cheryl Ladd.
You see, one day some American thought, hey, I want
to make a terrible movie in Canada. Everybody else has.
I play the best friend of the timegate operator. He
(49:27):
has one line, but he says it directly to me.
This movie is full of Canadian actors with one line.
It's great. It won't make a dime.
Speaker 3 (49:38):
So I want to cry. That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (49:41):
Yeah, that's the main thing that sticks out to me
about Millennium. But yeah, we could come back and do Millennium. Plus, hey,
Scott Thompson is in it. I love it when there's
a you know, a star hidden in there somewhere, or
future star if you will.
Speaker 3 (49:55):
All right, well, this has been a good mailbag, but
I think we have to call it there.
Speaker 2 (49:58):
All right, sounds good, going to go ahead and close it up,
but yeah, right in, we would love to hear from
you out there again. Just a reminder. Stuff Well in
Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast. Core
episodes Tuesdays and Thursdays, Friday's Weird House Cinema short form
episode on Wednesdays. Yeah, and I don't know if there's
anything else we really need to cover here, but I
guess we'll go ahead and throw it out. If you've
(50:19):
made it this far through the through the listener mail episode, hey,
make sure you rate interview where if you have the
ability to do that, give us some stars, thumbs up,
two thumbs up. I don't know. Every platform is a
little different, but whatever it is, we greatly appreciate the support.
Speaker 3 (50:34):
Yeah, if you want to help us out, subscribe wherever
you get your audio podcasts. And if you're watching us
on Netflix, click remind me so we pop up in
your feed when we release a new video episode. So
I guess that does it 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,
(50:56):
or just to say hello, you can email us at
contact Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1 (51:07):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff To Blow Your Mind News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Lamb
Joe McCormick
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Fudd Around And Find Out
UConn basketball star Azzi Fudd brings her championship swag to iHeart Women’s Sports with Fudd Around and Find Out, a weekly podcast that takes fans along for the ride as Azzi spends her final year of college trying to reclaim the National Championship and prepare to be a first round WNBA draft pick. Ever wonder what it’s like to be a world-class athlete in the public spotlight while still managing schoolwork, friendships and family time? It’s time to Fudd Around and Find Out!