May 14, 2026 • 52 mins
Once more, it's time for a dose of Stuff to Blow Your Mind and Weirdhouse Cinema listener mail...
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind Listener Mail.
My name is Robert.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Lamb and I am Joe McCormick, and hey on our
listener mail episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. What
do you think we do? Can you guess read messages?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Yeah, we got to get into the old mail bag
messages from the Stuff to Blow your Mind email address.
If you are a listener or a watcher on Netflix
and you have never gotten in touch before, it's always
a great time for it to be the first time.
You can reach us at contact at stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com. Whatever type of message you want
(00:45):
to send is fair game. We do our best to
read all of it. We often don't get a chance
to reply to all of these messages, but if you
do send something into the show, there's a chance it
could be featured in a listener mail episode like this one.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
That's right, and since I think it's going to come
up pretty early in this episode, will also go and
mention that, yeah, we're on some of the socials. We
also have a discord server for the show. To join
that Discord server, you just need to email us and
we'll send you the link. You know, maybe it's not
the most efficient way to do that, but it's the
way we keep doing it. I don't know. It makes
(01:20):
it feel a little more special when people actually join,
like you've got to want it enough to actually email
us and ask for the link. They actually have to
have a handoff of information.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Does that make it less likely that the discord is
infiltrated by bots? I don't know how Discord works.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
I guess so, I don't know. I don't know the
current state of bots. It's possible they are all bots
in there and they just all have me fooled. But
they're nice bots on the whole, so I guess I'm
not opposed to it.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Well, maybe we should start off with a message from
Discord today. So this is our first message. It's going
to be from Taylor, and it is in response to
our series from a few weeks back on the theme
of being upside down. So this message it actually relates
to multiple things we got into in that series. One
topic is what are called inversion illusions among astronauts in microgravity,
(02:11):
So you know, astronauts when they're in orbit around the
Earth and the space station or on the way up
sometimes report these these strange kind of sensations where they
will be in microgravity and then suddenly just like their
subjective vertical flips, and they suddenly think, Oh, I'm upside down,
I'm hanging upside down. So we talked about that and
some interesting effects of inversion illusions, like how can it
(02:36):
can like disrupt your perception of objects and things like that.
The other idea from that series is the Thatcher illusion.
That's this interesting psychology discovery about what happens when you
make grotesque alterations to a picture of a human face,
like if you flip the eyes and the mouth upside
down relative to the rest of the head. The Thatcher
(02:58):
illusion finding is that while these modifications are immediately obvious
and usually quite funny when looking at a picture right
side up, they become to most people virtually invisible when
the picture is turned upside down, and we get into
some theoretical reasons why that could be the case. So
on to Taylor's message here. Taylor writes have an interesting
(03:25):
tidbit to add to the upside down discussion. Turning illustrations
and reference images upside down is a tried and true
mind hack artists use to help reproduce those images more accurately.
To paraphrase an art instructor's explanation, our minds develop heuristic
concepts of what certain categories of things look like. When
(03:47):
illustrating a subject, the brain supplements sensory information from the
eyes with the heuristics offered up by our inner eye. Consequently,
an illustration of a subject is often skewed by what
we think the subject ought to look like. Inverting the
reference image slash subject makes it unfamiliar parentheses, we do
(04:09):
not have heuristic concepts of what most things look like
upside down, forcing the mind to abandon heuristic data and
focus on visual sensory information, helping an artist replicate the
image more accurately. I have to imagine something similar is
happening to astronauts experiencing inversion hallucinations and seeing familiar objects differently.
(04:32):
Perhaps the inversion is forcing them to observe the objects
more actively than they would at their typical vertical, where
mental heuristics might be supplementing their image processing. Well, thank you, Taylor.
That is a really interesting thing to add to this discussion.
I don't think I've ever used this technique myself, but
(04:53):
I should give it a try. I think I've talked
about this on the show before, but to my family
and friends, I am notoriously a terrible visual artist. Of
the things I draw attend to provoke the storms of
laughter from onlookers. So yeah, maybe this will finally help
me with my artistic breakthrough.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Well, I just always doodle goblins and the like, because
that way you always nail it one hundred percent. There's
no messing that up.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
That's true.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
All right, Here's here's another one. This one, I guess.
This one came in via email. Am I correct on this?
From matt yep Ye subject line I am upside down? Hi, guys.
Listening to your upside Down episodes made me remember something
from my childhood. In the front yard, we had a
tree that had branches forked in just the right way
(05:44):
to be perfect for hooking your legs over to hang
upside down. So naturally that was something me, my siblings,
and many of the neighborhood kids all did on a
semi regular basis. Now, the specific memory that the episodes
brought up was about a time that a friend was
hanging upside down and he commented how it looked like
I was walking on the ceiling. This struck me at
(06:07):
the time because such a thought had never occurred to me.
I think it has something to do with me having dyslexia.
But to me, the people around me still seemed right
side up even when I was upside down. I'm tempted
to use the words that they looked right side up,
but I think that isn't exactly right. It's more they
felt right side up, and the orientation of how they
(06:28):
looked didn't really matter to my brain. They were just
right side up. I don't know, but maybe you can
pull some discussion points from that. But in any case,
I hope you at least find that interesting. I also
wanted to mention something that came to mind while listening
to the Weird House episode about I Am Legend. This
would have been about the movie The Last Man on Earth,
but we also talked a little bit about I Am Legend,
(06:50):
that being the source book and also the name of
the third adaptation of the novel, and I continues me
as noteworthy how air seems to be the major weakness
of the bacteria, but the bacteria also spreads quote on
the wind. The bacteria propagates using the element that is
most dangerous to it, which seems to imply two distinct
(07:12):
phases of life, a spore phase where it is dormant
enough to survive air travel, and a more active phase
where it can infect its victims. Anyways, I thought you
might find these thoughts interesting. Love the show. I always
learned things I would never have even thought to look into. Matt.
Thank you Matt Well on that the first account this
childhood experience of hanging upside down and having kids discuss
(07:35):
their perceptions. I mean, yeah, it's I think we all
have maybe similar experiences, you know, where we just have
this there's this place where perception, you know, the pure
sense perception of things, and then the interpretation of sense
data meets and you know, there are different points in
our life where we're forced to really analyze how these
(07:59):
things lie up. And this sounds like, you know, perhaps
an early example of that, where you may maybe don't
have all the terms in your mind or you know,
certainly all the angles on it you'll get later on,
but you're beginning to wake up to the idea that, yeah,
something weird is going on. How is it that I
can see something and I also feel something about the
(08:20):
things I see that may be, you know, in opposition
to the way things are.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Yeah. I think it's very valuable when you're young to
have experiences of seeing the world a different way, or
having some kind of challenge to naive realism or challenged
to just the assumption that all of the properties that
you perceive about reality are are unchanging and objective, which
(08:45):
many of them are not.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Yeah, So thanks for that childhood field report there, Matt.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Yeah, Okay, here's a short message from Eric on the
subject of upside Down. A warning that this has spoilers
for a Star Wars Expanded Universe novel.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
So okay, they don't name which novel it is, so
just it's one of them. If you're looking to read
one to all of them, then just maybe have your
guards up.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Eric says, Hey, gents, thanks for the fun episodes about
upside Down. This your conversations reminded me about a Star
Wars Expanded Universe novel I read when I was a kid.
The hero of the novel was imprisoned in a subterranean
prison camp. Eventually he learns spoiler that the entire prison
is actually upside down through the use of artificial gravity
(09:40):
so that prisoners go the wrong direction if they attempt
to escape. It seemed a bit more effort than was
really worthwhile, but it was an interesting idea. Thank you,
thanks again for the great show.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Eric.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
This reminds me of the superstitious practice of burying suspected
vampires upside down.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yeah. Yeah. Plus, I don't know that I I've run
across a use of artificial gravity like this in sci
fi before. I mean, generally you're encountering artificial gravity for
one of two reasons, one because you actually want to
figure out how gravity attuned beings are going to live
in outer space, or generally, more to the point, you're
(10:20):
shooting a sci fi film and you don't want to
attempt to replicate micro gravity the whole time. You just
want gravity. And we're just gonna go ahead and say
that there's something under the floor or in the ship
that is making that happen. But this would be a
case of exploiting it planet side, which I pretty much
(10:40):
I don't think I ever encounter. I guess it would
make sense that in some of these sci fi scenarios
you would have it, just because not every world's going
to have the same amount of gravity that might be desired,
but in this case especially, you would have to really
have it cranked up. Right. This is like running the
air conditioner in the desert, right, because you're not only
(11:02):
creating gravity a strong gravitational pool where there isn't one
or there's a very weak one. You're creating the opposite
gravitational pull on a place where there is gravity. So yeah,
I agree, it sounds like maybe it was more more
work than was necessary, but hey, when you have presumably
a cruel empire behind something, they sometimes the budget goes
(11:26):
a bit out of control.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
This would have been a great plot point in Star
Crash if only we could go back in time and
get Luigi Kotzi to do this one. Can you just imagine,
like Stella and l they end up going to the
center of a planet because the prison was upside down.
I think it would work.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Yeah, I think it's Grit's great. Like I love what
they did in and Or with the prison, But if
they had used this concept instead, that would have totally worked.
I don't know, it would wouldn't have worked in the
same way. They'd have to change a few things, but
I think it's a cool idea.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
Well, I feel like it would have changed the tone
of the prison in and Or was pretty dark and terrifying.
This would make it significantly funnier.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, it depends how you play it out.
I mean, the idea of I guess it would have
been more of a dead end, because it's that seems
to be the where this ends up. As you think
that you're reaching the surface of your suptrane in prison,
but you've climbed the last rung of the ladder and
you emerge like deep below the prison, like you're even
more underground and buried than you were initially.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
So just just more locks down here.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Yeah, all right, well, yeah, thanks for sending that in. Yeah,
don't know which book that is, but I'm sure if
one does the right searches, it'll it'll turn up. All right,
Let's see, here's another one. This one comes to us
from Uncle Bosco. I don't think we've heard from Uncle
Bosco before. I don't recall, but this is more discussion
(12:48):
of upside down. Hello, gentlemen, your discussion is about upside down.
Immediately made me think of the scene from Big Trouble
in Little China, and the scene depicts a jack and Weighing,
saying a series of corpses hung upside down in chains
in water, and Weighing explains that this is the hell
of the upside down centers. I had an experience with
(13:11):
a little upside down weirdness. Oh wonder, this is the
point that I was wondering. Is he did he have
an experience where he was in a like he was
on an elevator and it began to flood with water
and he escaped into a hell of skeletons and chains.
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
I spent eighty thousand years in the prison of unchained.
What is it upside down centers? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Yeah, Uncle Bosco continues so and says, in twenty fifteen,
I had an accident with a lawnmower and the big
toe on my right foot was severely damaged. However, almost
all of the soul of that toe was intact. The
surgeon flipped that flap of skin up over the wound
and stitched it closed. Throughout my recovery, the surgeon would
(13:56):
cover my foot with a towel and use a needle
to test if my nerves were he and rewiring. For
about five months. When the surgeon would poke the needle
into the skin that was now on the top of
my toe, but which had been the bottom of my
toe for forty five years. My brain would usually signal
me that the needle was poking the bottom of my toe.
After about four months, I started to feel it correctly,
(14:18):
and around the end of the fifth month, my brain
had completely rewired itself to indicate the poke was on
the top of the toe. Be safe and have fun,
Uncle Bosco.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
That is awesome. That is really interesting. It makes me wonder, like,
what how is that process regulated? Does the nerve reorientation
there to feel the bottom of your toe as the
bottom again when the flesh has been relocated? Does that
require continuous visual conditioning? Like do you have to be
(14:51):
looking at your toe while you're touching it over a
long period of time or does that just happen naturally
somatically over some type of period.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Of re growth. Yeah, it makes me think of the
you know, some of the treatments for phantom limbs syndrome
that involve the use of a mirror. Yeah, yeah, fascinating.
All right, I think we have another one here for
us from another cleverly named listener. They keep coming up
(15:22):
with them.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
Do you want me to do this one?
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Oh please do?
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Okay, this is from the Wandering Wizard. Wandering Wizard says,
listening to The Upside Down part one and have only
made it to the part where you talk about Dante
going through Hell and coming out the other side and
having the flip in the middle. Yeah, that was what
we started talking about there, Wandering Wizard says, I know
you guys love quote interesting movies. I also know you
(15:48):
guys prefer the older movies, so you might not have
seen this one. In twenty twelve, someone decided to remake
the classic Total Recall. In the twenty twelve version, the
post apocalyptic Earth has a giant gravity elevator of sorts.
The movie calls it the Tube or the Fall. This
is a gravity driven transportation system that goes from one
(16:09):
side of the Earth to the other through the center,
and if I remember correctly, flips people halfway through. Oh
very nice. I'm skeptical that the reason Dante put the
flip in was because of the Earth centric universe view,
but that may just be me projecting because I know
the same things happen because of gravity. Keep up the
(16:30):
good work, Wandering Wizard.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Now I will say twenty twelve's Total Recall, directed by
Lynn Wiseman. It is a movie I had seen. I remember,
really yeah. I remember watching it, and I remember enjoying
it because I went into it knowing this was going
to be a different take on Total Recall, and this
was not going to be the Total Recall that I
(16:53):
that I loved. But you know, it was made by
a director whose films I have enjoyed before and featured
pretty cool cast, so it was like, it'll have some
fun action, and I remember having a good having a
good time with it. But I mean, this was also
one of the many films where this strange Martian phobia
comes into play with particularly you know American bigger budget pictures,
(17:18):
where there was just some sort of idea that seemed
to last way longer than it needed to that you
could not or you should not have a movie set
on Mars because it would be a box office failure.
You know. This was one of the reasons that they
made at least one of the Doomdom not Doom Doom movies,
and they were like, it's not set on Mars, and
(17:39):
then I think maybe they retro actively changed that. It's like,
actually it is Mars, like they backtracked a little bit,
but like, this is such a pervasive feeling. It's like, no,
you can't have a movie set on Mars. People will
not view it. It will not be a hit. Well,
what was it.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
I remember sometime in the nineties or was it the
nineties or the early two thousands, that were who movies
about Mars that came out around the same time, and
there was like Mission to Mars and Red Planet.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
I think that was it, and I think those, if
I'm not mistaken, those were not successful. My memory could
be off of that, but I think those films, or
at least one of those films, contributed to this bit
of wisdom in the film production world that Mars was
instant death for a film, and I imagine probably the
John Carter film that came out in recent decades was
(18:27):
also also contributed to this feeling. But yeah, I don't know.
The producers are hard on Mars. It's rare you see
a strong Martian film poked through to the surface. So
I imagine the scenario here is they're like, okay, we
want you to remake Total Recall, but it cannot be
set on Mars. And he's like Okay, can I have
an elevator that goes to the center of the Earth
(18:49):
to Australia And they're like, sure, that's great. God, people
will love that. People can connect to that.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
They don't go to Mars in this one. That was
the point you're building to. They actually never go.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
I don't think there's Mars in this one. Let me
do AI a quick Yeah, yeah, it's not on Earth,
not Mars.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Yeah. Well, I gotta say I find that offensive. I
think I think that I think total recall movies should
go to Mars. I've only seen the first one, but yeah,
that just seems like that's part of its soul. It's
got to.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Go there, all right. We had numerous folks write in
about this next bit and our when we were talking
about pop culture examples of walking on the ceiling, monsters
on the ceiling. I don't even remember how it came up,
but this idea of there being some sort of image
from a film in which there's a baby crawling on
the ceiling that had disturbed us, but in the heat
(19:42):
of the moment, neither of us to remember what film
it was. Numerous folks wrote in to tell us that
we were probably remembering nineteen ninety six's train Spotting. So,
for instance, I'll read at least one of these here. Well,
let's see we've got we heard from a couple of people.
Let's see which one should I read. Let's go with
(20:04):
Let's go l rode in. But we also heard from Mike.
I'm gonna read Mike's just because Mike mentioned something else
I did as well. Mike says, Hey, guys, I'm a
little behind in the pod lately, but I'm in the
middle of upside Down number two and have your answer
to where you were remembering a baby on the ceiling
from Trainspotting. When you and McGregor's character is going through
(20:26):
with draws, he has visions of a friend's baby crawling
along the ceiling towards him, a truly terrifying scene that
is made much worse by the uncanny valley robotic baby used.
I am guessing this answer was already given, but on
the off chance that it wasn't, here you go. Ps
still waiting for you guys to cover Johnny mnemonic in
Weird House. Thanks as always, Mike.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
All right, not the first time we've had a request
for Johnny mnemonic. So I never seen that one.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
I've seen parts of it and it's got a wildcast,
so it's very much on the list. It's just sometimes
these things, you know, we have a list to draw
from and sort of in the heat of the moment
inspirations to draw from, and we just kind of see
which way the wind is blowing when it comes time
to pick a movie. But this one's very much on
the list. I think we'll get to it in time.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
Okay, are you ready to do some responses to the
Star Wars episodes?
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Oh? Yeah, yeah, I'm going.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
To read this message from Jonas in reaction to the
first Star Wars episode that we did about Hath where
we talked about the Tonton sleeping bag, among other things.
Subject line of this episode a literary parallel to the
Tonton moment. Jonas says, Hi, Rob and Joe, I really
(21:44):
enjoyed listening to your discussion about the Star Wars episode
where Luke takes shelter inside to Tonton. It reminded me
of a similar story. In one of my favorite books,
The Settlers by Wilhelm Moeburg. One chapter tells the story
of a trip to the mill by the antagonist karl
Oscar and his young son Johann. They're traveling in a
(22:05):
cart pulled by an ox, and on their way home,
are caught in a fierce snowstorm. The situation becomes increasingly desperate,
and the boy is close to freezing to death. In
the end, karl Oscar makes the difficult decision to slaughter
the ox so he can place his son inside it
to keep him warm and save his life. I highly
recommend the book, as well as the entire the Immigrant
(22:27):
series that it is part of. This particular episode is
very intense and moving, and it has stayed with me
since I first read it many years ago. The book
was published in nineteen fifty six, so it's possible it
may have inspired Star Wars, although I'm sure similar stories
exist in many forms. It's always a pleasure listening to
your insightful discussions. Thank you, and keep up the great
(22:47):
work Jonas well. Thank you, Jonas. Yeah, that book sounds
really interesting. I was not previously. I've never read it, obviously,
and I was not familiar with this author, but I
looked up wil Moburg and seems like an interesting guide.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Cool cool, all right. In relation to the second of
those Star Wars episodes, the one dealing with the Sith
we heard from longtime listener p K, and PK chimed
in on Discord to talk specifically about the Sith transition situation,
the whole rule of two in the the The The
(23:24):
thing here is that p K has read a number
of these Star Wars books or listen to the audiobook
versions and wanted to point out some of their well,
what they learned from these books.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
Can you refresh the listeners on how the Sith succession
rule of two.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Goes always two? There are a master and an apprentice,
and yeah, and so the master is always killed by
the apprentice. The master holds and withholds power and knowledge.
The apprentice wants power, but there can only be two
at a time, and eventually the apprentice will kill the master,
becoming the news and taking on a new apprentice. Okay, Yeah,
(24:02):
And we get into it and we discussed the practicality
of all this. But Pete Ky says that I'm gonna
I'm going to quote them here. I'm not going to
read all of their thoughts. That they had a number
of thoughts here, but they wrote. My impression was that
they didn't necessarily think the new Sith would be the
exception to the rule, except at least a couple seriously
(24:25):
attempted to find a way to extend their lives indefinitely,
and even then it sounds more like they wanted much
longer lives and they often weren't happy with their apprentice
not making a valid challenge, like with Baine Darth Baine,
he thought it unhonorable to wait for the apprentice, to
wait for him to get old and slow, that wouldn't
(24:46):
sharpen the syth. So that's when he went to find
a way to live forever and to find a replacement.
So it sounds like, you know, some of these these
books dealing with the Sith and getting into these master
apprentice relationships, they have of course chewed on some of this,
you know, like, what's what's the master thinking as he's
watching this apprentice growing, you know, stronger and yet just
(25:10):
as hungry as before, and then what does that mean
for the long time learn long term future of their
religion slash organization.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
This also sounds like PK here is answering a question
that we brought up in the episode, which the question
was like, are the Sith lords and apprentices aware of
this rule that the right that the apprentice always kills
and replaces the master. Is this just like meta that
we we know looking in on this world or are
(25:38):
the characters in the world aware of it? And Rob
your answer was sort of that it seems like maybe
they are aware of it, but the masters often think
that they're going to be the exception.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Well, one thing that that PK did argue was that
given how secret of the organization is, the apprentice doesn't
necessarily know about this whole rule of two things when
they dart, like they just know that they're like some
sort of dark Jedi out there, and then they meet
somebody that's very powerful and you know and probably quite
scary as well, you know, and just how powerful they are. Uh,
(26:11):
and then they fall under their control their power. Uh,
And it's maybe not till much later that they realize, oh,
this is this is a thing, this is this is ah,
this is going to be my master's fate and my
MultiMate fate as well. Okay, Uh. But then p K
also points out quote the third main book is all
about this secession struggle. By the way, the Palpatine book
(26:34):
is also one of the better in the Star Wars series.
The Secession here there is shorter but also fascinating. If
you haven't read it, it makes Palpatine much more of
a full fledged character and you end up liking him
for the most part.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Yeah yeah, So anyway, I'm just sharing a little bit
of what they shared in Discord. But I found it.
Found it pretty fascinating. Uh. And it makes sense of
course that these books would would really get in there
and discuss, you know, tease a part of the relationship
between these masters and these apprentices.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Okay, the next message I'm going to do has images
with it. This comes from Christopher subject line heck in Chonker. Greetings, Robert, Joe,
and JJ. Thanks for the great episodes on Goldfish Slash
carp slash Coyfish. Loved learning about the history of these fish.
(27:29):
Wanted to share some pics of my neighbor's goldfish Nemo.
Oh that's that's Brutal. A goldfish named Nemo who started
life as an eighteen cent feeder goldfish from Petco eight
years ago. The second spring they had him, the owner
decided to put him outside in a backyard pond slash
water feature to enjoy the outdoors. When late fall rolled around.
(27:53):
It was time to bring Nemo back in the house
to shelter from the cold Chicago winter. I know you
had mentioned the episode that the myth of a goldfish
growing to the size of its container is just that
a myth. But I have seen with my own eyes
the anecdotal evidence as he went from a small fish
in an indoor tank to a much larger outdoor habitat
(28:15):
and came out significantly came out the significantly larger fish
you see in the photos here now residing in a
fifty gallon tank all to himself. And then Chris attaches
some images of this. It's one of these goldfish that
has kind of bulging out eyes that are coming out
to the sides, kind of Admiral Acbar a little bit
(28:35):
to come back to Star Wars, and has some very
nice golden orange color. But it does. Oh, Chris's holding
is hand up for comparison. The fish is bigger than
his whole hand.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Nice. Nice, Yeah, it's a beautiful fish.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
Chris continues. Other than his size, he's a very interesting fish.
He will watch you when you enter the room and
go about. Additionally, he will loudly slap the sides of
the tank at the waterline when his owner is about
and he wants some additional feeding. Thanks again for the
deep dive into these fish, Chris. I don't think i'd
(29:11):
ever heard before of fish communicating like this, slapping the
side of the tank to communicate with the owner and
express their desire for food, though I did have a
kind of similar experience, not with slapping, but just recently, Rob,
you and I were actually in the same place we
happened to we recorded an episode together on location, and
(29:33):
we were walking around this hotel and saw they had
a koi pond with some beautiful fish in it swimming around.
And when I was standing there beside the koi pond,
I noticed suddenly all of the fish were gathering in
my shadow. They were kind of over to me, and
I was like, what is this all about? And I realized, like, oh,
probably when somebody stands here, that's when they're about to
(29:54):
get fed.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Yeah, yeah, koi will do that for sure. They see
the shadow, they know you're human, and like you know,
a pet cat or dog, they come up and they're like,
you human, do the thing that you were supposed to
do for me. Dogs do this too, you know. I
go over to somebody's house. They have a dog, and
the dog is like, I need you to let me outside,
and I just have to say, I am not authorized
to do that. That's not my job. You have the
(30:15):
wrong human, But yeah, yeah, in this case and others
you have, the Koi will come up and they just
kind of regard you. And you can see why we
discussing the episodes of how you'll have anecdotal evidence of
Koi and or other carp having a sort of personality
and even even a relationship with their human or their
(30:37):
human observer where the human you know, sees them as
an individual who also regards them in return.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
Anyway, Thank you, Chris.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
All right, let's skip on ahead to some weird house
cinema messages here. This one comes to us from Column
and the subject line is I Am never going to
a spa again. Colin says, hi, guys, I thought these
were places where people went to relax. Obviously not, and
includes a classic poster to the film Death spa tagline
(31:17):
you'll sweat blood, and Colin says, am liking the Cactus episodes,
just moving straight on to this poster. Yes, and also
you are available here now on Netflix in Ireland. There
was a bit of a delay all the best column.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
Thank you, Calum. I long have admired this poster. Actually,
I've actually never watched the whole movie. I think I
watched maybe the first five minutes of it one time.
But I'm gonna have to try to do the whole
thing because the poster it's just earned my business.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Yeah, there's like a guy being tortured by exercise equipment
from hell. There's a hot lady in a swimsuit with
a skullhead. Skullhead, great elements. It's come up on the
show before because it it features some actors we've covered before,
and it's been on my list for a while. I
think sometimes I end up skipping over it because in
(32:08):
the heat of the moment, I confuse death Spa about
a spa that kills with was it deathbed, the bed
that kills, the bed that eats, the bed that eats?
And I think you had mentioned that deathbed, you didn't
think it was one it would be a good pick,
So so I kind of like end up accidentally putting
death Spat onto the past list without remembering that it's
(32:29):
actually a separate film.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
I mean, it's been a long time since I saw
Deathbed The Bed That Eats, but I recall it being
kind of underwhelming.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Actually, yeah, sometimes it's a lot for a movie to
live up to a great title and or a great poster,
for sure.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
Yeah, but the Death spa poster. The lady on this poster,
who's in her like aerobics outfit, has the skullface reminds
me of the skullface monster from Empire of the Dark
that wanders into the kitchen in her underwear and starts
kissing the guy but has the monster mask.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Yes, yeah, so good. Yeah, all right, we'll just have
to we'll have to make sure it's on the considerations
list for sure.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
Uh okay, Rob, do you mind if I read this
one from Larry Goes for It? This one has to
do with Last Temptation of Christ. Subject line Josh Judas
and the Church nineteen eighty nine. Hi, guys, thanks for
(33:29):
the weird House episode on Last Temptation of Christ. I
worked in one of our country's oldest episcopal churches and
recently began studying early Christianity. I wasn't raised religious per se,
so I didn't realize Jesus wasn't Jesus's historical name the
savior of humanity was Josh. Anyway, Larry goes on, I'm
(33:51):
making reference to another ancient book that is not part
of the Bible. It's one of these apocryphal Christian texts
called the Gospel of Judas. Larry says in the Gospel
of Judas, Jesus tells Judas to turn him in. It
was found in nineteen seventy eight. Do you wonder how
much influence it may have had on the movie, or
(34:12):
if it was coincidentally, what the author of the novel
included too? Would you consider covering some of the famous
or strangest non canon gospels or sayings Bibles. It's cool
that the early days of the faith are full of
all different types of Christianities or Jewish sects, not two
distinct faiths. Well, Larry, you're speaking my language. I don't
(34:35):
think we've ever done an episode fully just devoted to
non canonical early Christian texts, but they've definally come up
here and there in other topics. I know we've talked
at some length about some various gnostic Gnostic Christianities and
other books. Actually, there was one episode years back now,
(34:55):
I think it was probably in like twenty twenty where
I interview viewed a biblical scholar named bart Erman about
it was for his book on Heaven and Hell, sort
of the origins of how Christians came to believe in
the modern versions of heaven and hell, where those ideas
come from, and how they developed. But one of the
(35:18):
things I talked about with him also was some of
these early books, these Christian books that give visions of
heaven and hell, like long before Dante. There are books
that like The Apocalypse of Peter, that go into extreme
detail talking about the tortures of the damned and like
what parts of the body people are being hung up
by and stuff. Yeah, so it gets pretty gnarly, but
(35:42):
I do generally agree they are just all kinds of
interesting things going on in early Christian history that are
I think fascinating no matter who you are, but also
really strange, probably to a lot of modern Christians, like
won't recognize a lot of the theology and stuff anyway.
So Larry goes on to say, this recent interest is
(36:04):
why I finally watched The Church. Really we went from
genuine went from like Christian theology to the movie The Church.
Would you do it for a weird house. I don't
think I've ever seen something so delightfully baffling in so
many different ways. I felt like I was watching someone
else's dream played backward. Felt nostalgic after spending some wonderfully
(36:25):
spooky days working in a historic church. Keep up the
great episodes, Larry. Uh. Yeah, Wow, It's been a while
since I've seen the Church, but I remember loving it.
It is nuts.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Yeah, same here. It's been It's been way too long
since I saw it, but I loved it back in
the day. And we've been talking about we've never we've
certainly mentioned Michael Suave on the show before, but we've
never because he pops up. He and his motorcycle popped
up in a number of you know, Italian films, so we've.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
Been around an absurd I think.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Yeah, he in his motor cycle show up and absurd,
you know, and he's you know, he helped out and
he learned the trade. He was an eager learner on
the sets of many a horror film. But we haven't
talked about any of the films that he actually directed,
and he's directed some fun ones.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
Did he play a creep in City of the Living Dead?
I think he did. Did he not the main creep
in the movie? I think another creep in it.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Yeah, or I can't remember if he showed up or
if we just saw a motorcycle and we were like,
where's Soave? But it's I guess. One of the things
with that is that much of it was filmed, the
outdoor stuff. Anyway, it was filmed in Georgia, so I
don't know if Swami made the trip or if he
was just on the like for the sets.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
In Rome, he's everywhere.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
But all right, another vote for the Church. We'll push
it up the list. All right, here's one from Wade.
Wade is riding in in response to a much older
episode of Weird House Cinema that we recently re aired
as part of our Star Wars week because we were
talking about one of the early spaghetti Star Wars films,
The Humanoid. Wade says, Hi, guys, I don't know if
(38:13):
this came up when the Humanoid episode originally aired, and
indeed I do not remember, but I wanted to comment
on the memory of Jaws in Moonraker, the James Bond film,
Jaws falling in love with the woman after she smiled
and he saw her braces. I saw Moonraker in the
theater with my dad when I was a kid, and
I have a very clear memory of the same scene. However,
(38:37):
pretty recently, I've seen evidence that this memory of the
woman having braces is an example of the Mandela effect,
the so called Mandela effect, and is basically a false memory.
All examples of the film available clearly show she didn't
have braces. Here is a link included to a Skeptical
Inquirer article about I Mean by author slash skeptic Mick West.
(39:03):
It discusses the scene and gives some other examples of
the Mandela effect. This one really got me because I
have a very clear memory of the braces from when
I saw the film. I guess it's just another example
of how our memories can change and be manipulated over time.
I enjoy the show. Thanks way, well, yeah, thank you, Wade.
So it's been so long since we recorded the episode on.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
The Humanoid, I genuinely don't remember what we said about it,
So I hope I don't issue some bizarre contradiction now.
But what my memory now is is that when I
saw this movie as a kid, that lady had braces.
I know that's not true. I don't believe in parallel
dimensions or anything. I don't think there's anything actually spooky
(39:45):
going on with the so called Mandela effect. I think
it's just, you know, there are common misconceptions. You remember
things a certain way because it seems like it would
have made sense for it to be that way, Like
it would have been a kind of perfect thing for
her to have braces and jaws, to have his metal teeth,
But that's just not what it was. For some reason,
(40:06):
lots of people remember it wrong that way.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Yeah, Like we mentioned Total Recall earlier. I know we've
discussed this, but there's a scene where one of the
Mars people, a short lady with a sword, stabs one
of the villains, and in my memory from watching Total Recall,
the first time, I thought, she like stabbed the dude
in the crotch with the sword.
Speaker 3 (40:26):
Oh yeah, I remember that.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
But it's apparently not the crotch that she stabs him.
She stabs him somewhere else. She still stabs him to death,
but it's you know, I have this very clear memory
of how I thought the scene was, and then it's
different later on. And we've also encountered like less specific
versions of that where there'll be some film and you
or I have like a memory of it being glorier
or more upsetting than it actually really is. And part
(40:50):
of that is, you know, just like you know where
we were when we watched it, and how we perhaps
reflected on it afterwards. And again, just coming back to
what we've mentioned many times before, the more you you with,
the more you withdraw that particular memory, the more you
get your fingerprints on it, the more you manipulated. So
the memories that we and this goes beyond movies, this
goes to everything in life, but the memories that we
(41:13):
utilize the most are also the ones we can trust
the least. Yeah, broadly speak, don't let that. Don't trouble
yourself too much over that.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
Well, yeah, I mean there are exceptions to that. Obviously.
There are different ways that a memory can be preserved.
Like if you're recalling a memory many times with the
aid of video footage every time, obviously that's going to
be a different relationship to that memory than something that
you're you don't even remember all that well the first time,
(41:41):
and then you start remembering it a lot, you know,
then you're really probably going to be narrativizing. So yeah,
but it is certainly true that you never want to
fall for the illusion that our memories are a video camera,
no matter how much it might seem that way.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
Right right, Yeah, for that to be the case, we
would have to be cyborgs.
Speaker 3 (41:59):
Yes, so it is time to do some borg stuff.
So a rob you pulled in a message from Discord
from a shadow Rat. This is about the Albert Pune
movie Nemesis, which we covered on Weird House Cinema. It's
a movie that I think it had some cyborgs in it,
and so here shadow Rat is going to reference a
(42:21):
character named Alex Rain. Alex Rain is the main character
of Nemesis. A lot of Nemesis is people arguing about
who is and is not a cyborg, and in a
lot of cases it's not actually clear except our main
character is a cyborg, but a lot of times he
talks about how other people are cyborgs and he's not
a cyborg. Anyway, Shadow Rat says, I noticed a lot
(42:43):
of similarities between Alex Rain and Blade, like where you're
going here, shadow at So in Blad's world, you've got
vampires and humans at war. There are humans that seem
perfectly capable of fighting the vampires. But what they really
need is a human vampire hybrid, because I guess that
(43:05):
person gets all the strengths of both humans and vampires.
Alex's rain is kind of the same trope in Nemesis.
You have some kind of human slash cyborg conflict going on.
It's true, it is quite vague in the film. But
Shadaat says, although it doesn't seem like the humans eat machines. Okay,
(43:26):
So that that right, So that parallel to Blade does
not hold. It's not like the humans are going out
sucking the cyborg's blood. But yeah, so it doesn't seem
like the machines eat the humans or the humans eat
the machines. Alex is the savior of humans that is
half human half machine. But I thought, in the context
(43:46):
of the movie, isn't that sort of what cyborg means anyway?
It's like a half human half machine. Okay, So Shadarat
goes on. Actually, now that I type that out, I
realize that Jesus also kind of fits that trope. He's
the same of humanity that's human and vampire slat and
then crossed out vampire and God, Jesus, Blade, and Alex
(44:07):
rayn Oh. Also, both Blade and Alex seem to have
this inner conflict thing going on. Blade worries about giving
into his vampire side, Alex worries about his machine percentage
getting too high. I'm pretty sure that the Gospels depict
Jesus as wanting to stay human a little longer. I
don't well, I think what you're probably thinking of, Shado
(44:29):
Rat is the scene in the Garden of Gethseymone where
Jesus says, in at least some of the Gospel tellings,
Jesus praise if God will allow this cup to pass
from him, essentially like, can I get out of this?
Speaker 2 (44:42):
I want more life Father, Yes, exactly.
Speaker 3 (44:44):
Yeah. So shadow Rat says he's sort of resisting getting
his God percentage to one hundred.
Speaker 2 (44:52):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
Well this is applause. Several rounds of applause please for
Shadow Rat.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
Yes, yes, very good. And now also, yeah, I mean
not that, not that every work that we've referenced here,
or certainly that that gets into this territory. Not not
every work is going to be, you know, intentionally going
deep on any of any of these concepts. But I
think you know, obviously a lot of these stories appeal
to us because you know, we live in a world
where there are a lot of like like firm strict
(45:20):
labels for what we're supposed to be, and most people
will find themselves, if they're truly self aware, they'll find
themselves not completely lining up with these various labels, right,
And so, you know, everybody feels a little bit like
a vampire or human hybrid at times. And also it
seems like what we need is somebody that can bridge
(45:40):
some sort of division. You need somebody who's an individual
of both worlds. And of course, you know there are
examples of very much realities like that doesn't always doesn't
always work out. Sometimes your half human vampire just ends
up being hated by both vampires and humans, or have
not hated, at least treated at times with the same
sort of hostility or more alienation. But you know, it's
(46:06):
a you know, it's a you know, we're highly social
creatures and we're very very tuned in to how you know,
others perceive us and whether we're fitting in or not
fitting in. What does it mean to fit in or
not fit in with a particular group, What does it
mean to be an outsider. So stories like this are
always going to resonate with us.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
It's true. I mean. The crazy thing is that reminds
me of that quote we read from Albert pew And
where despite the fact that he kept making cyborg post
apocalyptic cyborg movies, he apparently said, I'm not really all
that interested in cyborgs. It was just a way to
tell the stories I wanted to tell. So I don't know.
I think he was maybe interested in some kind of
(46:45):
more deeper, more universal or generic theme about blended or
altered types of humanity that and the cyborg was just
one way you can make that into a story.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm all for it. We should
have more. We're not making enough cyborg films, is what
I'm saying, and I want to see more. Go make
them please? All right. Finally, obviously, we were always asking
(47:19):
for recommendations for weird House Cinema what we should consider
covering in the future, and I think in one week
we heard like from three different directions people mentioning the
five thousand Fingers of Doctor T. So I want to
acknowledge that Dexter wrote in about this independently. My wife
happened to send me a clip from the same movie.
But I'm going to read a message here from Carrie. Carrie,
(47:41):
says Robin Joe on your April twenty third, twenty six podcasts,
you requested listeners to not let you forget films that
have been suggested for Weird House. The door having been opened,
I will shamelessly remind you of the three I have
suggested in the past. The Five Thousand Fingers of Doctor
t a musical fantasy with story and screenplay by Doctor Seuss.
This giant mutant ants run them up, threatening a great
(48:03):
cast including James Arnez Island of Terror silicate based monsters
accidentally created in a laboratory that sucked the bones out
of people, starring Peter Cushing.
Speaker 3 (48:13):
What do people look like when the bones are gone?
Speaker 2 (48:16):
Hopefully a big old, big old pile of flesh? Right?
Speaker 3 (48:19):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (48:20):
That. There was a great Ray Bradberry Theater episode like
that that had Eugene Levy in it, where he goes
and ends up getting his bones all sucked out, and
Eugene Levy's character is reduced to just a pile of
Eugene Levy flesh.
Speaker 3 (48:33):
Hanging on a clothesline or something.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
Yeah, I think it's just crumpled up on the floor
like a pair of old pants, but still alive. It's disturbing.
And then Carrie continues. He says, and one more that
I haven't mentioned before. Doctor Who and the Dalks, a
nineteen sixty five theatrical release of the Doctor Who Origin
story starring Peter Cushing. I'm not a big Who fan,
(48:57):
but I know people who are who had not of
this film. I hope you can get around to somebody sometime.
Thanks for doing such an entertaining and enlightening podcast, Carrie,
Thank you, Carrie. Yeah, so five thousand fingers definitely on
the list. Enough people have recommended it that can't ignore
it forever them. Yeah, we always love giant creatures, giant ants,
(49:22):
and in general, anything that has Peter Cushing in it
is at least worth a glance. I have looked at
Peter Cushing films that just were not a good fit before.
He was in a lot of things, not all of
them worth that good, but he's always a nice presence
in a film.
Speaker 3 (49:36):
I think some of the worst movies we've done on
Weird House have been Peter Cushing movies, but it wasn't
his fault. No, he was in that movie with the
minotaur that it wasn't actually a minotaur. It's called Devil's Men.
Speaker 2 (49:49):
Yes, that was one of the dullest films we ever
watched for a weird house. But Brian Eno did the music,
so it's like, I'm glad we did it. There was
no way I was going to say no to I think,
if memory serves, like, the only film that has a
dedicated Brian Eno score, not counting movies that have utilized
Brian Eno tracks or he contributed or something like, this
(50:10):
was the only one where a very minimal, minimal and
very minimally heard score is actually by Brian Eno. Yeah,
it's the most interesting thing about that movie. I think.
Speaker 3 (50:21):
Didn't that also have Donald pleasance in it?
Speaker 2 (50:23):
It did, yes, yes, But I remember really reaching for
things that were legitimately interesting about the film. I remember
we discussed what was on a dinner table for a while.
It was still a fun episode though.
Speaker 3 (50:36):
No, that one did to have. It had some good
bad food in it, and as we talk about on
the show pretty often, I like to pause the movie
when there's a table with food and just see what's
going on there. Yeah, whether they got on the set. Okay,
does that do it for today?
Speaker 2 (50:51):
I think that does it for today, But hey, write
in about any and everything. We're game for it. We
already mentioned how to get in touch with us, but
we'll lay that up again here at the end. Just
a reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily
a science and culture podcast, with core episodes on Tuesdays
and Thursdays, and maybe once a month one of those
Tuesday or Thursday episodes will be listener mail and we
(51:12):
try to catch up. Wednesdays we do a short form episode,
and then on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns
just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.
And if you're wondering, have they done this film before?
Have they done that film? We'll certainly look in the
audio vault wherever you get your podcast, look up Stuff
to Blow your Mind, or look up dedicated Weird House
Cinema playlist, and you can see all those episodes. But
(51:35):
also you can go to letterbox dot com. Our username
there is weird House, and we have a nice list
of all the movies we've covered over the years, and
sometimes a peek ahead of what comes up next.
Speaker 3 (51:45):
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
you can email us at contact at stuff to blow
your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
Stuffed 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.
My name is Robert.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Lamb and I am Joe McCormick, and hey on our
listener mail episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. What
do you think we do? Can you guess read messages?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Yeah, we got to get into the old mail bag
messages from the Stuff to Blow your Mind email address.
If you are a listener or a watcher on Netflix
and you have never gotten in touch before, it's always
a great time for it to be the first time.
You can reach us at contact at stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com. Whatever type of message you want
(00:45):
to send is fair game. We do our best to
read all of it. We often don't get a chance
to reply to all of these messages, but if you
do send something into the show, there's a chance it
could be featured in a listener mail episode like this one.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
That's right, and since I think it's going to come
up pretty early in this episode, will also go and
mention that, yeah, we're on some of the socials. We
also have a discord server for the show. To join
that Discord server, you just need to email us and
we'll send you the link. You know, maybe it's not
the most efficient way to do that, but it's the
way we keep doing it. I don't know. It makes
(01:20):
it feel a little more special when people actually join,
like you've got to want it enough to actually email
us and ask for the link. They actually have to
have a handoff of information.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Does that make it less likely that the discord is
infiltrated by bots? I don't know how Discord works.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
I guess so, I don't know. I don't know the
current state of bots. It's possible they are all bots
in there and they just all have me fooled. But
they're nice bots on the whole, so I guess I'm
not opposed to it.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Well, maybe we should start off with a message from
Discord today. So this is our first message. It's going
to be from Taylor, and it is in response to
our series from a few weeks back on the theme
of being upside down. So this message it actually relates
to multiple things we got into in that series. One
topic is what are called inversion illusions among astronauts in microgravity,
(02:11):
So you know, astronauts when they're in orbit around the
Earth and the space station or on the way up
sometimes report these these strange kind of sensations where they
will be in microgravity and then suddenly just like their
subjective vertical flips, and they suddenly think, Oh, I'm upside down,
I'm hanging upside down. So we talked about that and
some interesting effects of inversion illusions, like how can it
(02:36):
can like disrupt your perception of objects and things like that.
The other idea from that series is the Thatcher illusion.
That's this interesting psychology discovery about what happens when you
make grotesque alterations to a picture of a human face,
like if you flip the eyes and the mouth upside
down relative to the rest of the head. The Thatcher
(02:58):
illusion finding is that while these modifications are immediately obvious
and usually quite funny when looking at a picture right
side up, they become to most people virtually invisible when
the picture is turned upside down, and we get into
some theoretical reasons why that could be the case. So
on to Taylor's message here. Taylor writes have an interesting
(03:25):
tidbit to add to the upside down discussion. Turning illustrations
and reference images upside down is a tried and true
mind hack artists use to help reproduce those images more accurately.
To paraphrase an art instructor's explanation, our minds develop heuristic
concepts of what certain categories of things look like. When
(03:47):
illustrating a subject, the brain supplements sensory information from the
eyes with the heuristics offered up by our inner eye. Consequently,
an illustration of a subject is often skewed by what
we think the subject ought to look like. Inverting the
reference image slash subject makes it unfamiliar parentheses, we do
(04:09):
not have heuristic concepts of what most things look like
upside down, forcing the mind to abandon heuristic data and
focus on visual sensory information, helping an artist replicate the
image more accurately. I have to imagine something similar is
happening to astronauts experiencing inversion hallucinations and seeing familiar objects differently.
(04:32):
Perhaps the inversion is forcing them to observe the objects
more actively than they would at their typical vertical, where
mental heuristics might be supplementing their image processing. Well, thank you, Taylor.
That is a really interesting thing to add to this discussion.
I don't think I've ever used this technique myself, but
(04:53):
I should give it a try. I think I've talked
about this on the show before, but to my family
and friends, I am notoriously a terrible visual artist. Of
the things I draw attend to provoke the storms of
laughter from onlookers. So yeah, maybe this will finally help
me with my artistic breakthrough.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Well, I just always doodle goblins and the like, because
that way you always nail it one hundred percent. There's
no messing that up.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
That's true.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
All right, Here's here's another one. This one, I guess.
This one came in via email. Am I correct on this?
From matt yep Ye subject line I am upside down? Hi, guys.
Listening to your upside Down episodes made me remember something
from my childhood. In the front yard, we had a
tree that had branches forked in just the right way
(05:44):
to be perfect for hooking your legs over to hang
upside down. So naturally that was something me, my siblings,
and many of the neighborhood kids all did on a
semi regular basis. Now, the specific memory that the episodes
brought up was about a time that a friend was
hanging upside down and he commented how it looked like
I was walking on the ceiling. This struck me at
(06:07):
the time because such a thought had never occurred to me.
I think it has something to do with me having dyslexia.
But to me, the people around me still seemed right
side up even when I was upside down. I'm tempted
to use the words that they looked right side up,
but I think that isn't exactly right. It's more they
felt right side up, and the orientation of how they
(06:28):
looked didn't really matter to my brain. They were just
right side up. I don't know, but maybe you can
pull some discussion points from that. But in any case,
I hope you at least find that interesting. I also
wanted to mention something that came to mind while listening
to the Weird House episode about I Am Legend. This
would have been about the movie The Last Man on Earth,
but we also talked a little bit about I Am Legend,
(06:50):
that being the source book and also the name of
the third adaptation of the novel, and I continues me
as noteworthy how air seems to be the major weakness
of the bacteria, but the bacteria also spreads quote on
the wind. The bacteria propagates using the element that is
most dangerous to it, which seems to imply two distinct
(07:12):
phases of life, a spore phase where it is dormant
enough to survive air travel, and a more active phase
where it can infect its victims. Anyways, I thought you
might find these thoughts interesting. Love the show. I always
learned things I would never have even thought to look into. Matt.
Thank you Matt Well on that the first account this
childhood experience of hanging upside down and having kids discuss
(07:35):
their perceptions. I mean, yeah, it's I think we all
have maybe similar experiences, you know, where we just have
this there's this place where perception, you know, the pure
sense perception of things, and then the interpretation of sense
data meets and you know, there are different points in
our life where we're forced to really analyze how these
(07:59):
things lie up. And this sounds like, you know, perhaps
an early example of that, where you may maybe don't
have all the terms in your mind or you know,
certainly all the angles on it you'll get later on,
but you're beginning to wake up to the idea that, yeah,
something weird is going on. How is it that I
can see something and I also feel something about the
(08:20):
things I see that may be, you know, in opposition
to the way things are.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Yeah. I think it's very valuable when you're young to
have experiences of seeing the world a different way, or
having some kind of challenge to naive realism or challenged
to just the assumption that all of the properties that
you perceive about reality are are unchanging and objective, which
(08:45):
many of them are not.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Yeah, So thanks for that childhood field report there, Matt.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Yeah, Okay, here's a short message from Eric on the
subject of upside Down. A warning that this has spoilers
for a Star Wars Expanded Universe novel.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
So okay, they don't name which novel it is, so
just it's one of them. If you're looking to read
one to all of them, then just maybe have your
guards up.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Eric says, Hey, gents, thanks for the fun episodes about
upside Down. This your conversations reminded me about a Star
Wars Expanded Universe novel I read when I was a kid.
The hero of the novel was imprisoned in a subterranean
prison camp. Eventually he learns spoiler that the entire prison
is actually upside down through the use of artificial gravity
(09:40):
so that prisoners go the wrong direction if they attempt
to escape. It seemed a bit more effort than was
really worthwhile, but it was an interesting idea. Thank you,
thanks again for the great show.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Eric.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
This reminds me of the superstitious practice of burying suspected
vampires upside down.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yeah. Yeah. Plus, I don't know that I I've run
across a use of artificial gravity like this in sci
fi before. I mean, generally you're encountering artificial gravity for
one of two reasons, one because you actually want to
figure out how gravity attuned beings are going to live
in outer space, or generally, more to the point, you're
(10:20):
shooting a sci fi film and you don't want to
attempt to replicate micro gravity the whole time. You just
want gravity. And we're just gonna go ahead and say
that there's something under the floor or in the ship
that is making that happen. But this would be a
case of exploiting it planet side, which I pretty much
(10:40):
I don't think I ever encounter. I guess it would
make sense that in some of these sci fi scenarios
you would have it, just because not every world's going
to have the same amount of gravity that might be desired,
but in this case especially, you would have to really
have it cranked up. Right. This is like running the
air conditioner in the desert, right, because you're not only
(11:02):
creating gravity a strong gravitational pool where there isn't one
or there's a very weak one. You're creating the opposite
gravitational pull on a place where there is gravity. So yeah,
I agree, it sounds like maybe it was more more
work than was necessary, but hey, when you have presumably
a cruel empire behind something, they sometimes the budget goes
(11:26):
a bit out of control.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
This would have been a great plot point in Star
Crash if only we could go back in time and
get Luigi Kotzi to do this one. Can you just imagine,
like Stella and l they end up going to the
center of a planet because the prison was upside down.
I think it would work.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Yeah, I think it's Grit's great. Like I love what
they did in and Or with the prison, But if
they had used this concept instead, that would have totally worked.
I don't know, it would wouldn't have worked in the
same way. They'd have to change a few things, but
I think it's a cool idea.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
Well, I feel like it would have changed the tone
of the prison in and Or was pretty dark and terrifying.
This would make it significantly funnier.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, it depends how you play it out.
I mean, the idea of I guess it would have
been more of a dead end, because it's that seems
to be the where this ends up. As you think
that you're reaching the surface of your suptrane in prison,
but you've climbed the last rung of the ladder and
you emerge like deep below the prison, like you're even
more underground and buried than you were initially.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
So just just more locks down here.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Yeah, all right, well, yeah, thanks for sending that in. Yeah,
don't know which book that is, but I'm sure if
one does the right searches, it'll it'll turn up. All right,
Let's see, here's another one. This one comes to us
from Uncle Bosco. I don't think we've heard from Uncle
Bosco before. I don't recall, but this is more discussion
(12:48):
of upside down. Hello, gentlemen, your discussion is about upside down.
Immediately made me think of the scene from Big Trouble
in Little China, and the scene depicts a jack and Weighing,
saying a series of corpses hung upside down in chains
in water, and Weighing explains that this is the hell
of the upside down centers. I had an experience with
(13:11):
a little upside down weirdness. Oh wonder, this is the
point that I was wondering. Is he did he have
an experience where he was in a like he was
on an elevator and it began to flood with water
and he escaped into a hell of skeletons and chains.
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
I spent eighty thousand years in the prison of unchained.
What is it upside down centers? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Yeah, Uncle Bosco continues so and says, in twenty fifteen,
I had an accident with a lawnmower and the big
toe on my right foot was severely damaged. However, almost
all of the soul of that toe was intact. The
surgeon flipped that flap of skin up over the wound
and stitched it closed. Throughout my recovery, the surgeon would
(13:56):
cover my foot with a towel and use a needle
to test if my nerves were he and rewiring. For
about five months. When the surgeon would poke the needle
into the skin that was now on the top of
my toe, but which had been the bottom of my
toe for forty five years. My brain would usually signal
me that the needle was poking the bottom of my toe.
After about four months, I started to feel it correctly,
(14:18):
and around the end of the fifth month, my brain
had completely rewired itself to indicate the poke was on
the top of the toe. Be safe and have fun,
Uncle Bosco.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
That is awesome. That is really interesting. It makes me wonder, like,
what how is that process regulated? Does the nerve reorientation
there to feel the bottom of your toe as the
bottom again when the flesh has been relocated? Does that
require continuous visual conditioning? Like do you have to be
(14:51):
looking at your toe while you're touching it over a
long period of time or does that just happen naturally
somatically over some type of period.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Of re growth. Yeah, it makes me think of the
you know, some of the treatments for phantom limbs syndrome
that involve the use of a mirror. Yeah, yeah, fascinating.
All right, I think we have another one here for
us from another cleverly named listener. They keep coming up
(15:22):
with them.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
Do you want me to do this one?
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Oh please do?
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Okay, this is from the Wandering Wizard. Wandering Wizard says,
listening to The Upside Down part one and have only
made it to the part where you talk about Dante
going through Hell and coming out the other side and
having the flip in the middle. Yeah, that was what
we started talking about there, Wandering Wizard says, I know
you guys love quote interesting movies. I also know you
(15:48):
guys prefer the older movies, so you might not have
seen this one. In twenty twelve, someone decided to remake
the classic Total Recall. In the twenty twelve version, the
post apocalyptic Earth has a giant gravity elevator of sorts.
The movie calls it the Tube or the Fall. This
is a gravity driven transportation system that goes from one
(16:09):
side of the Earth to the other through the center,
and if I remember correctly, flips people halfway through. Oh
very nice. I'm skeptical that the reason Dante put the
flip in was because of the Earth centric universe view,
but that may just be me projecting because I know
the same things happen because of gravity. Keep up the
(16:30):
good work, Wandering Wizard.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Now I will say twenty twelve's Total Recall, directed by
Lynn Wiseman. It is a movie I had seen. I remember,
really yeah. I remember watching it, and I remember enjoying
it because I went into it knowing this was going
to be a different take on Total Recall, and this
was not going to be the Total Recall that I
(16:53):
that I loved. But you know, it was made by
a director whose films I have enjoyed before and featured
pretty cool cast, so it was like, it'll have some
fun action, and I remember having a good having a
good time with it. But I mean, this was also
one of the many films where this strange Martian phobia
comes into play with particularly you know American bigger budget pictures,
(17:18):
where there was just some sort of idea that seemed
to last way longer than it needed to that you
could not or you should not have a movie set
on Mars because it would be a box office failure.
You know. This was one of the reasons that they
made at least one of the Doomdom not Doom Doom movies,
and they were like, it's not set on Mars, and
(17:39):
then I think maybe they retro actively changed that. It's like,
actually it is Mars, like they backtracked a little bit,
but like, this is such a pervasive feeling. It's like, no,
you can't have a movie set on Mars. People will
not view it. It will not be a hit. Well,
what was it.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
I remember sometime in the nineties or was it the
nineties or the early two thousands, that were who movies
about Mars that came out around the same time, and
there was like Mission to Mars and Red Planet.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
I think that was it, and I think those, if
I'm not mistaken, those were not successful. My memory could
be off of that, but I think those films, or
at least one of those films, contributed to this bit
of wisdom in the film production world that Mars was
instant death for a film, and I imagine probably the
John Carter film that came out in recent decades was
(18:27):
also also contributed to this feeling. But yeah, I don't know.
The producers are hard on Mars. It's rare you see
a strong Martian film poked through to the surface. So
I imagine the scenario here is they're like, okay, we
want you to remake Total Recall, but it cannot be
set on Mars. And he's like Okay, can I have
an elevator that goes to the center of the Earth
(18:49):
to Australia And they're like, sure, that's great. God, people
will love that. People can connect to that.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
They don't go to Mars in this one. That was
the point you're building to. They actually never go.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
I don't think there's Mars in this one. Let me
do AI a quick Yeah, yeah, it's not on Earth,
not Mars.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Yeah. Well, I gotta say I find that offensive. I
think I think that I think total recall movies should
go to Mars. I've only seen the first one, but yeah,
that just seems like that's part of its soul. It's
got to.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Go there, all right. We had numerous folks write in
about this next bit and our when we were talking
about pop culture examples of walking on the ceiling, monsters
on the ceiling. I don't even remember how it came up,
but this idea of there being some sort of image
from a film in which there's a baby crawling on
the ceiling that had disturbed us, but in the heat
(19:42):
of the moment, neither of us to remember what film
it was. Numerous folks wrote in to tell us that
we were probably remembering nineteen ninety six's train Spotting. So,
for instance, I'll read at least one of these here. Well,
let's see we've got we heard from a couple of people.
Let's see which one should I read. Let's go with
(20:04):
Let's go l rode in. But we also heard from Mike.
I'm gonna read Mike's just because Mike mentioned something else
I did as well. Mike says, Hey, guys, I'm a
little behind in the pod lately, but I'm in the
middle of upside Down number two and have your answer
to where you were remembering a baby on the ceiling
from Trainspotting. When you and McGregor's character is going through
(20:26):
with draws, he has visions of a friend's baby crawling
along the ceiling towards him, a truly terrifying scene that
is made much worse by the uncanny valley robotic baby used.
I am guessing this answer was already given, but on
the off chance that it wasn't, here you go. Ps
still waiting for you guys to cover Johnny mnemonic in
Weird House. Thanks as always, Mike.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
All right, not the first time we've had a request
for Johnny mnemonic. So I never seen that one.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
I've seen parts of it and it's got a wildcast,
so it's very much on the list. It's just sometimes
these things, you know, we have a list to draw
from and sort of in the heat of the moment
inspirations to draw from, and we just kind of see
which way the wind is blowing when it comes time
to pick a movie. But this one's very much on
the list. I think we'll get to it in time.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
Okay, are you ready to do some responses to the
Star Wars episodes?
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Oh? Yeah, yeah, I'm going.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
To read this message from Jonas in reaction to the
first Star Wars episode that we did about Hath where
we talked about the Tonton sleeping bag, among other things.
Subject line of this episode a literary parallel to the
Tonton moment. Jonas says, Hi, Rob and Joe, I really
(21:44):
enjoyed listening to your discussion about the Star Wars episode
where Luke takes shelter inside to Tonton. It reminded me
of a similar story. In one of my favorite books,
The Settlers by Wilhelm Moeburg. One chapter tells the story
of a trip to the mill by the antagonist karl
Oscar and his young son Johann. They're traveling in a
(22:05):
cart pulled by an ox, and on their way home,
are caught in a fierce snowstorm. The situation becomes increasingly desperate,
and the boy is close to freezing to death. In
the end, karl Oscar makes the difficult decision to slaughter
the ox so he can place his son inside it
to keep him warm and save his life. I highly
recommend the book, as well as the entire the Immigrant
(22:27):
series that it is part of. This particular episode is
very intense and moving, and it has stayed with me
since I first read it many years ago. The book
was published in nineteen fifty six, so it's possible it
may have inspired Star Wars, although I'm sure similar stories
exist in many forms. It's always a pleasure listening to
your insightful discussions. Thank you, and keep up the great
(22:47):
work Jonas well. Thank you, Jonas. Yeah, that book sounds
really interesting. I was not previously. I've never read it, obviously,
and I was not familiar with this author, but I
looked up wil Moburg and seems like an interesting guide.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Cool cool, all right. In relation to the second of
those Star Wars episodes, the one dealing with the Sith
we heard from longtime listener p K, and PK chimed
in on Discord to talk specifically about the Sith transition situation,
the whole rule of two in the the The The
(23:24):
thing here is that p K has read a number
of these Star Wars books or listen to the audiobook
versions and wanted to point out some of their well,
what they learned from these books.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
Can you refresh the listeners on how the Sith succession
rule of two.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Goes always two? There are a master and an apprentice,
and yeah, and so the master is always killed by
the apprentice. The master holds and withholds power and knowledge.
The apprentice wants power, but there can only be two
at a time, and eventually the apprentice will kill the master,
becoming the news and taking on a new apprentice. Okay, Yeah,
(24:02):
And we get into it and we discussed the practicality
of all this. But Pete Ky says that I'm gonna
I'm going to quote them here. I'm not going to
read all of their thoughts. That they had a number
of thoughts here, but they wrote. My impression was that
they didn't necessarily think the new Sith would be the
exception to the rule, except at least a couple seriously
(24:25):
attempted to find a way to extend their lives indefinitely,
and even then it sounds more like they wanted much
longer lives and they often weren't happy with their apprentice
not making a valid challenge, like with Baine Darth Baine,
he thought it unhonorable to wait for the apprentice, to
wait for him to get old and slow, that wouldn't
(24:46):
sharpen the syth. So that's when he went to find
a way to live forever and to find a replacement.
So it sounds like, you know, some of these these
books dealing with the Sith and getting into these master
apprentice relationships, they have of course chewed on some of this,
you know, like, what's what's the master thinking as he's
watching this apprentice growing, you know, stronger and yet just
(25:10):
as hungry as before, and then what does that mean
for the long time learn long term future of their
religion slash organization.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
This also sounds like PK here is answering a question
that we brought up in the episode, which the question
was like, are the Sith lords and apprentices aware of
this rule that the right that the apprentice always kills
and replaces the master. Is this just like meta that
we we know looking in on this world or are
(25:38):
the characters in the world aware of it? And Rob
your answer was sort of that it seems like maybe
they are aware of it, but the masters often think
that they're going to be the exception.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Well, one thing that that PK did argue was that
given how secret of the organization is, the apprentice doesn't
necessarily know about this whole rule of two things when
they dart, like they just know that they're like some
sort of dark Jedi out there, and then they meet
somebody that's very powerful and you know and probably quite
scary as well, you know, and just how powerful they are. Uh,
(26:11):
and then they fall under their control their power. Uh,
And it's maybe not till much later that they realize, oh,
this is this is a thing, this is this is ah,
this is going to be my master's fate and my
MultiMate fate as well. Okay, Uh. But then p K
also points out quote the third main book is all
about this secession struggle. By the way, the Palpatine book
(26:34):
is also one of the better in the Star Wars series.
The Secession here there is shorter but also fascinating. If
you haven't read it, it makes Palpatine much more of
a full fledged character and you end up liking him
for the most part.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Yeah yeah, So anyway, I'm just sharing a little bit
of what they shared in Discord. But I found it.
Found it pretty fascinating. Uh. And it makes sense of
course that these books would would really get in there
and discuss, you know, tease a part of the relationship
between these masters and these apprentices.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Okay, the next message I'm going to do has images
with it. This comes from Christopher subject line heck in Chonker. Greetings, Robert, Joe,
and JJ. Thanks for the great episodes on Goldfish Slash
carp slash Coyfish. Loved learning about the history of these fish.
(27:29):
Wanted to share some pics of my neighbor's goldfish Nemo.
Oh that's that's Brutal. A goldfish named Nemo who started
life as an eighteen cent feeder goldfish from Petco eight
years ago. The second spring they had him, the owner
decided to put him outside in a backyard pond slash
water feature to enjoy the outdoors. When late fall rolled around.
(27:53):
It was time to bring Nemo back in the house
to shelter from the cold Chicago winter. I know you
had mentioned the episode that the myth of a goldfish
growing to the size of its container is just that
a myth. But I have seen with my own eyes
the anecdotal evidence as he went from a small fish
in an indoor tank to a much larger outdoor habitat
(28:15):
and came out significantly came out the significantly larger fish
you see in the photos here now residing in a
fifty gallon tank all to himself. And then Chris attaches
some images of this. It's one of these goldfish that
has kind of bulging out eyes that are coming out
to the sides, kind of Admiral Acbar a little bit
(28:35):
to come back to Star Wars, and has some very
nice golden orange color. But it does. Oh, Chris's holding
is hand up for comparison. The fish is bigger than
his whole hand.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Nice. Nice, Yeah, it's a beautiful fish.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
Chris continues. Other than his size, he's a very interesting fish.
He will watch you when you enter the room and
go about. Additionally, he will loudly slap the sides of
the tank at the waterline when his owner is about
and he wants some additional feeding. Thanks again for the
deep dive into these fish, Chris. I don't think i'd
(29:11):
ever heard before of fish communicating like this, slapping the
side of the tank to communicate with the owner and
express their desire for food, though I did have a
kind of similar experience, not with slapping, but just recently, Rob,
you and I were actually in the same place we
happened to we recorded an episode together on location, and
(29:33):
we were walking around this hotel and saw they had
a koi pond with some beautiful fish in it swimming around.
And when I was standing there beside the koi pond,
I noticed suddenly all of the fish were gathering in
my shadow. They were kind of over to me, and
I was like, what is this all about? And I realized, like, oh,
probably when somebody stands here, that's when they're about to
(29:54):
get fed.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Yeah, yeah, koi will do that for sure. They see
the shadow, they know you're human, and like you know,
a pet cat or dog, they come up and they're like,
you human, do the thing that you were supposed to
do for me. Dogs do this too, you know. I
go over to somebody's house. They have a dog, and
the dog is like, I need you to let me outside,
and I just have to say, I am not authorized
to do that. That's not my job. You have the
(30:15):
wrong human, But yeah, yeah, in this case and others
you have, the Koi will come up and they just
kind of regard you. And you can see why we
discussing the episodes of how you'll have anecdotal evidence of
Koi and or other carp having a sort of personality
and even even a relationship with their human or their
(30:37):
human observer where the human you know, sees them as
an individual who also regards them in return.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
Anyway, Thank you, Chris.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
All right, let's skip on ahead to some weird house
cinema messages here. This one comes to us from Column
and the subject line is I Am never going to
a spa again. Colin says, hi, guys, I thought these
were places where people went to relax. Obviously not, and
includes a classic poster to the film Death spa tagline
(31:17):
you'll sweat blood, and Colin says, am liking the Cactus episodes,
just moving straight on to this poster. Yes, and also
you are available here now on Netflix in Ireland. There
was a bit of a delay all the best column.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
Thank you, Calum. I long have admired this poster. Actually,
I've actually never watched the whole movie. I think I
watched maybe the first five minutes of it one time.
But I'm gonna have to try to do the whole
thing because the poster it's just earned my business.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Yeah, there's like a guy being tortured by exercise equipment
from hell. There's a hot lady in a swimsuit with
a skullhead. Skullhead, great elements. It's come up on the
show before because it it features some actors we've covered before,
and it's been on my list for a while. I
think sometimes I end up skipping over it because in
(32:08):
the heat of the moment, I confuse death Spa about
a spa that kills with was it deathbed, the bed
that kills, the bed that eats, the bed that eats?
And I think you had mentioned that deathbed, you didn't
think it was one it would be a good pick,
So so I kind of like end up accidentally putting
death Spat onto the past list without remembering that it's
(32:29):
actually a separate film.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
I mean, it's been a long time since I saw
Deathbed The Bed That Eats, but I recall it being
kind of underwhelming.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Actually, yeah, sometimes it's a lot for a movie to
live up to a great title and or a great poster,
for sure.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
Yeah, but the Death spa poster. The lady on this poster,
who's in her like aerobics outfit, has the skullface reminds
me of the skullface monster from Empire of the Dark
that wanders into the kitchen in her underwear and starts
kissing the guy but has the monster mask.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Yes, yeah, so good. Yeah, all right, we'll just have
to we'll have to make sure it's on the considerations
list for sure.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
Uh okay, Rob, do you mind if I read this
one from Larry Goes for It? This one has to
do with Last Temptation of Christ. Subject line Josh Judas
and the Church nineteen eighty nine. Hi, guys, thanks for
(33:29):
the weird House episode on Last Temptation of Christ. I
worked in one of our country's oldest episcopal churches and
recently began studying early Christianity. I wasn't raised religious per se,
so I didn't realize Jesus wasn't Jesus's historical name the
savior of humanity was Josh. Anyway, Larry goes on, I'm
(33:51):
making reference to another ancient book that is not part
of the Bible. It's one of these apocryphal Christian texts
called the Gospel of Judas. Larry says in the Gospel
of Judas, Jesus tells Judas to turn him in. It
was found in nineteen seventy eight. Do you wonder how
much influence it may have had on the movie, or
(34:12):
if it was coincidentally, what the author of the novel
included too? Would you consider covering some of the famous
or strangest non canon gospels or sayings Bibles. It's cool
that the early days of the faith are full of
all different types of Christianities or Jewish sects, not two
distinct faiths. Well, Larry, you're speaking my language. I don't
(34:35):
think we've ever done an episode fully just devoted to
non canonical early Christian texts, but they've definally come up
here and there in other topics. I know we've talked
at some length about some various gnostic Gnostic Christianities and
other books. Actually, there was one episode years back now,
(34:55):
I think it was probably in like twenty twenty where
I interview viewed a biblical scholar named bart Erman about
it was for his book on Heaven and Hell, sort
of the origins of how Christians came to believe in
the modern versions of heaven and hell, where those ideas
come from, and how they developed. But one of the
(35:18):
things I talked about with him also was some of
these early books, these Christian books that give visions of
heaven and hell, like long before Dante. There are books
that like The Apocalypse of Peter, that go into extreme
detail talking about the tortures of the damned and like
what parts of the body people are being hung up
by and stuff. Yeah, so it gets pretty gnarly, but
(35:42):
I do generally agree they are just all kinds of
interesting things going on in early Christian history that are
I think fascinating no matter who you are, but also
really strange, probably to a lot of modern Christians, like
won't recognize a lot of the theology and stuff anyway.
So Larry goes on to say, this recent interest is
(36:04):
why I finally watched The Church. Really we went from
genuine went from like Christian theology to the movie The Church.
Would you do it for a weird house. I don't
think I've ever seen something so delightfully baffling in so
many different ways. I felt like I was watching someone
else's dream played backward. Felt nostalgic after spending some wonderfully
(36:25):
spooky days working in a historic church. Keep up the
great episodes, Larry. Uh. Yeah, Wow, It's been a while
since I've seen the Church, but I remember loving it.
It is nuts.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Yeah, same here. It's been It's been way too long
since I saw it, but I loved it back in
the day. And we've been talking about we've never we've
certainly mentioned Michael Suave on the show before, but we've
never because he pops up. He and his motorcycle popped
up in a number of you know, Italian films, so we've.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
Been around an absurd I think.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Yeah, he in his motor cycle show up and absurd,
you know, and he's you know, he helped out and
he learned the trade. He was an eager learner on
the sets of many a horror film. But we haven't
talked about any of the films that he actually directed,
and he's directed some fun ones.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
Did he play a creep in City of the Living Dead?
I think he did. Did he not the main creep
in the movie? I think another creep in it.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Yeah, or I can't remember if he showed up or
if we just saw a motorcycle and we were like,
where's Soave? But it's I guess. One of the things
with that is that much of it was filmed, the
outdoor stuff. Anyway, it was filmed in Georgia, so I
don't know if Swami made the trip or if he
was just on the like for the sets.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
In Rome, he's everywhere.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
But all right, another vote for the Church. We'll push
it up the list. All right, here's one from Wade.
Wade is riding in in response to a much older
episode of Weird House Cinema that we recently re aired
as part of our Star Wars week because we were
talking about one of the early spaghetti Star Wars films,
The Humanoid. Wade says, Hi, guys, I don't know if
(38:13):
this came up when the Humanoid episode originally aired, and
indeed I do not remember, but I wanted to comment
on the memory of Jaws in Moonraker, the James Bond film,
Jaws falling in love with the woman after she smiled
and he saw her braces. I saw Moonraker in the
theater with my dad when I was a kid, and
I have a very clear memory of the same scene. However,
(38:37):
pretty recently, I've seen evidence that this memory of the
woman having braces is an example of the Mandela effect,
the so called Mandela effect, and is basically a false memory.
All examples of the film available clearly show she didn't
have braces. Here is a link included to a Skeptical
Inquirer article about I Mean by author slash skeptic Mick West.
(39:03):
It discusses the scene and gives some other examples of
the Mandela effect. This one really got me because I
have a very clear memory of the braces from when
I saw the film. I guess it's just another example
of how our memories can change and be manipulated over time.
I enjoy the show. Thanks way, well, yeah, thank you, Wade.
So it's been so long since we recorded the episode on.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
The Humanoid, I genuinely don't remember what we said about it,
So I hope I don't issue some bizarre contradiction now.
But what my memory now is is that when I
saw this movie as a kid, that lady had braces.
I know that's not true. I don't believe in parallel
dimensions or anything. I don't think there's anything actually spooky
(39:45):
going on with the so called Mandela effect. I think
it's just, you know, there are common misconceptions. You remember
things a certain way because it seems like it would
have made sense for it to be that way, Like
it would have been a kind of perfect thing for
her to have braces and jaws, to have his metal teeth,
But that's just not what it was. For some reason,
(40:06):
lots of people remember it wrong that way.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Yeah, Like we mentioned Total Recall earlier. I know we've
discussed this, but there's a scene where one of the
Mars people, a short lady with a sword, stabs one
of the villains, and in my memory from watching Total Recall,
the first time, I thought, she like stabbed the dude
in the crotch with the sword.
Speaker 3 (40:26):
Oh yeah, I remember that.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
But it's apparently not the crotch that she stabs him.
She stabs him somewhere else. She still stabs him to death,
but it's you know, I have this very clear memory
of how I thought the scene was, and then it's
different later on. And we've also encountered like less specific
versions of that where there'll be some film and you
or I have like a memory of it being glorier
or more upsetting than it actually really is. And part
(40:50):
of that is, you know, just like you know where
we were when we watched it, and how we perhaps
reflected on it afterwards. And again, just coming back to
what we've mentioned many times before, the more you you with,
the more you withdraw that particular memory, the more you
get your fingerprints on it, the more you manipulated. So
the memories that we and this goes beyond movies, this
goes to everything in life, but the memories that we
(41:13):
utilize the most are also the ones we can trust
the least. Yeah, broadly speak, don't let that. Don't trouble
yourself too much over that.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
Well, yeah, I mean there are exceptions to that. Obviously.
There are different ways that a memory can be preserved.
Like if you're recalling a memory many times with the
aid of video footage every time, obviously that's going to
be a different relationship to that memory than something that
you're you don't even remember all that well the first time,
(41:41):
and then you start remembering it a lot, you know,
then you're really probably going to be narrativizing. So yeah,
but it is certainly true that you never want to
fall for the illusion that our memories are a video camera,
no matter how much it might seem that way.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
Right right, Yeah, for that to be the case, we
would have to be cyborgs.
Speaker 3 (41:59):
Yes, so it is time to do some borg stuff.
So a rob you pulled in a message from Discord
from a shadow Rat. This is about the Albert Pune
movie Nemesis, which we covered on Weird House Cinema. It's
a movie that I think it had some cyborgs in it,
and so here shadow Rat is going to reference a
(42:21):
character named Alex Rain. Alex Rain is the main character
of Nemesis. A lot of Nemesis is people arguing about
who is and is not a cyborg, and in a
lot of cases it's not actually clear except our main
character is a cyborg, but a lot of times he
talks about how other people are cyborgs and he's not
a cyborg. Anyway, Shadow Rat says, I noticed a lot
(42:43):
of similarities between Alex Rain and Blade, like where you're
going here, shadow at So in Blad's world, you've got
vampires and humans at war. There are humans that seem
perfectly capable of fighting the vampires. But what they really
need is a human vampire hybrid, because I guess that
(43:05):
person gets all the strengths of both humans and vampires.
Alex's rain is kind of the same trope in Nemesis.
You have some kind of human slash cyborg conflict going on.
It's true, it is quite vague in the film. But
Shadaat says, although it doesn't seem like the humans eat machines. Okay,
(43:26):
So that that right, So that parallel to Blade does
not hold. It's not like the humans are going out
sucking the cyborg's blood. But yeah, so it doesn't seem
like the machines eat the humans or the humans eat
the machines. Alex is the savior of humans that is
half human half machine. But I thought, in the context
(43:46):
of the movie, isn't that sort of what cyborg means anyway?
It's like a half human half machine. Okay, So Shadarat
goes on. Actually, now that I type that out, I
realize that Jesus also kind of fits that trope. He's
the same of humanity that's human and vampire slat and
then crossed out vampire and God, Jesus, Blade, and Alex
(44:07):
rayn Oh. Also, both Blade and Alex seem to have
this inner conflict thing going on. Blade worries about giving
into his vampire side, Alex worries about his machine percentage
getting too high. I'm pretty sure that the Gospels depict
Jesus as wanting to stay human a little longer. I
don't well, I think what you're probably thinking of, Shado
(44:29):
Rat is the scene in the Garden of Gethseymone where
Jesus says, in at least some of the Gospel tellings,
Jesus praise if God will allow this cup to pass
from him, essentially like, can I get out of this?
Speaker 2 (44:42):
I want more life Father, Yes, exactly.
Speaker 3 (44:44):
Yeah. So shadow Rat says he's sort of resisting getting
his God percentage to one hundred.
Speaker 2 (44:52):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
Well this is applause. Several rounds of applause please for
Shadow Rat.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
Yes, yes, very good. And now also, yeah, I mean
not that, not that every work that we've referenced here,
or certainly that that gets into this territory. Not not
every work is going to be, you know, intentionally going
deep on any of any of these concepts. But I
think you know, obviously a lot of these stories appeal
to us because you know, we live in a world
where there are a lot of like like firm strict
(45:20):
labels for what we're supposed to be, and most people
will find themselves, if they're truly self aware, they'll find
themselves not completely lining up with these various labels, right,
And so, you know, everybody feels a little bit like
a vampire or human hybrid at times. And also it
seems like what we need is somebody that can bridge
(45:40):
some sort of division. You need somebody who's an individual
of both worlds. And of course, you know there are
examples of very much realities like that doesn't always doesn't
always work out. Sometimes your half human vampire just ends
up being hated by both vampires and humans, or have
not hated, at least treated at times with the same
sort of hostility or more alienation. But you know, it's
(46:06):
a you know, it's a you know, we're highly social
creatures and we're very very tuned in to how you know,
others perceive us and whether we're fitting in or not
fitting in. What does it mean to fit in or
not fit in with a particular group, What does it
mean to be an outsider. So stories like this are
always going to resonate with us.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
It's true. I mean. The crazy thing is that reminds
me of that quote we read from Albert pew And
where despite the fact that he kept making cyborg post
apocalyptic cyborg movies, he apparently said, I'm not really all
that interested in cyborgs. It was just a way to
tell the stories I wanted to tell. So I don't know.
I think he was maybe interested in some kind of
(46:45):
more deeper, more universal or generic theme about blended or
altered types of humanity that and the cyborg was just
one way you can make that into a story.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm all for it. We should
have more. We're not making enough cyborg films, is what
I'm saying, and I want to see more. Go make
them please? All right. Finally, obviously, we were always asking
(47:19):
for recommendations for weird House Cinema what we should consider
covering in the future, and I think in one week
we heard like from three different directions people mentioning the
five thousand Fingers of Doctor T. So I want to
acknowledge that Dexter wrote in about this independently. My wife
happened to send me a clip from the same movie.
But I'm going to read a message here from Carrie. Carrie,
(47:41):
says Robin Joe on your April twenty third, twenty six podcasts,
you requested listeners to not let you forget films that
have been suggested for Weird House. The door having been opened,
I will shamelessly remind you of the three I have
suggested in the past. The Five Thousand Fingers of Doctor
t a musical fantasy with story and screenplay by Doctor Seuss.
This giant mutant ants run them up, threatening a great
(48:03):
cast including James Arnez Island of Terror silicate based monsters
accidentally created in a laboratory that sucked the bones out
of people, starring Peter Cushing.
Speaker 3 (48:13):
What do people look like when the bones are gone?
Speaker 2 (48:16):
Hopefully a big old, big old pile of flesh? Right?
Speaker 3 (48:19):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (48:20):
That. There was a great Ray Bradberry Theater episode like
that that had Eugene Levy in it, where he goes
and ends up getting his bones all sucked out, and
Eugene Levy's character is reduced to just a pile of
Eugene Levy flesh.
Speaker 3 (48:33):
Hanging on a clothesline or something.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
Yeah, I think it's just crumpled up on the floor
like a pair of old pants, but still alive. It's disturbing.
And then Carrie continues. He says, and one more that
I haven't mentioned before. Doctor Who and the Dalks, a
nineteen sixty five theatrical release of the Doctor Who Origin
story starring Peter Cushing. I'm not a big Who fan,
(48:57):
but I know people who are who had not of
this film. I hope you can get around to somebody sometime.
Thanks for doing such an entertaining and enlightening podcast, Carrie,
Thank you, Carrie. Yeah, so five thousand fingers definitely on
the list. Enough people have recommended it that can't ignore
it forever them. Yeah, we always love giant creatures, giant ants,
(49:22):
and in general, anything that has Peter Cushing in it
is at least worth a glance. I have looked at
Peter Cushing films that just were not a good fit before.
He was in a lot of things, not all of
them worth that good, but he's always a nice presence
in a film.
Speaker 3 (49:36):
I think some of the worst movies we've done on
Weird House have been Peter Cushing movies, but it wasn't
his fault. No, he was in that movie with the
minotaur that it wasn't actually a minotaur. It's called Devil's Men.
Speaker 2 (49:49):
Yes, that was one of the dullest films we ever
watched for a weird house. But Brian Eno did the music,
so it's like, I'm glad we did it. There was
no way I was going to say no to I think,
if memory serves, like, the only film that has a
dedicated Brian Eno score, not counting movies that have utilized
Brian Eno tracks or he contributed or something like, this
(50:10):
was the only one where a very minimal, minimal and
very minimally heard score is actually by Brian Eno. Yeah,
it's the most interesting thing about that movie. I think.
Speaker 3 (50:21):
Didn't that also have Donald pleasance in it?
Speaker 2 (50:23):
It did, yes, yes, But I remember really reaching for
things that were legitimately interesting about the film. I remember
we discussed what was on a dinner table for a while.
It was still a fun episode though.
Speaker 3 (50:36):
No, that one did to have. It had some good
bad food in it, and as we talk about on
the show pretty often, I like to pause the movie
when there's a table with food and just see what's
going on there. Yeah, whether they got on the set. Okay,
does that do it for today?
Speaker 2 (50:51):
I think that does it for today, But hey, write
in about any and everything. We're game for it. We
already mentioned how to get in touch with us, but
we'll lay that up again here at the end. Just
a reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily
a science and culture podcast, with core episodes on Tuesdays
and Thursdays, and maybe once a month one of those
Tuesday or Thursday episodes will be listener mail and we
(51:12):
try to catch up. Wednesdays we do a short form episode,
and then on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns
just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.
And if you're wondering, have they done this film before?
Have they done that film? We'll certainly look in the
audio vault wherever you get your podcast, look up Stuff
to Blow your Mind, or look up dedicated Weird House
Cinema playlist, and you can see all those episodes. But
(51:35):
also you can go to letterbox dot com. Our username
there is weird House, and we have a nice list
of all the movies we've covered over the years, and
sometimes a peek ahead of what comes up next.
Speaker 3 (51:45):
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
you can email us at contact at stuff to blow
your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
Stuffed 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.
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