STBYM Listener Mail: The Dog Days are Over

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

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Episode Transcript

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

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind listener mail.
This is Robert Lamb.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
And this is Joe McCormick. And today we're doing one
of the episodes where we read messages from the Stuff
to Blow Your Mind email address. If you are a
listener and you have never gotten in touch before, now
is a great time to do it for the first time.
You can email us at contact at stuff to blow
your mind dot com. We welcome messages of any type,

(00:37):
whatever you think we might be interested to read. We,
of course, always love it if you have something cool
to add to a topic that we talked about. Maybe
we did a series on a subject and you know
something about that subject that we didn't get into in
the series itself. Put it on our radar. Share your
knowledge with us. Send us an email. If you ever
have a correction, of course, that's welcome. If you ever

(00:59):
just want to share what you like about the show,
where you listen from, say hi, you know, friendly chat,
any of that is fair game. Contact at StuffToBlowYourMind.com.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
That's right. Love a good field report. And yeah, it's
going to be good to get into the old mailbag
here because we might not get back into it till
maybe even November because what we're going to try and
do here is use a buffer week in September to
get ahead and try and really double down on October
this year on our Halloween content. So if everything goes

(01:33):
according to plan, and sometimes it doesn't, you might not
get another listener mail until November. We'll see how it goes, though.

Speaker 3 (01:40):
All right. Maybe we should kick things off with some
responses to our series on Mercury. I'm going to do
this message from Trey.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
Trey says, Hi, Rob and Joe. I was listening to
your episode on Mercury, and I wanted to add two
references from science fiction to Mercury and how its denizens
survived on the planet. This is picking up on a thread,
I think, from maybe the second or third part of
the series where we talked about different authors who had
imagined people living on Mercury, not always the most plausible

(02:15):
setting for a for a colony. But, you know, eventually,
if you're imagining there's enough stuff happening out in space.
People are going to end up there somehow. Yeah. Anyway,
back to Trey's message. Trey says one book entitled 2312
by Kim Stanley Robinson circles around the city Terminator on Mercury.

(02:36):
The city is massive and runs on tracks that keep
it from the uninhabitable portion of Mercury. So I guess
this would be keeping it off of the day side
of the planet.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
Imagine it would be trying to stay in the twilight area,
but I haven't read it, so I don't know. Trey says,
really interesting adaptation of living on the planet's surface. Another
book that has Mercury as a habitable planet with many
successful cities is in the Red Rising series by Adrian Pierce.
It is a major depot for the society, the faction
that the main character is at war with in the series.

(03:10):
Its cities exist underground. Hopefully these two examples expand Mercury
in sci-fi for you guys. You have my permission to
mention my name, uh, Trey. Okay. Well, there's your name, Trey. Uh, yeah.
And thanks for this. I don't really know anything about
Adrian Pierce. I love Kim Stanley Robinson, but I haven't
read this book yet. Uh, and there's actually another, uh, uh,

(03:32):
Robinson book that I also have not read, but was
reading about a little bit before our episode on science fiction. Uh,
so it's a Robinson's book called the memory of whiteness
from 1985, uh, which is apparently about a musician. There's
like an orchestra conductor who works with this weird futuristic

(03:55):
musical instrument and is doing a tour, doing performances throughout
the solar system, like starting out in some farther out
planet and then coming in closer and closer to the
sun as this tour goes on. And the plot involves
this musician being stalked by... I don't know, assassins or

(04:16):
somebody is, is trying to, uh, to interfere with him
or harm him. And the story I know ends up
involving a secretive monastic order of kind of sun worshiping
monks based on Mercury. But again, I haven't read the
book itself and I didn't have time to go much
deeper than that before the series, but it sounds interesting.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. To my knowledge, I don't think I've
read any Kim Stanley Robinson. Now, um, as far as
red rising by Adrian Pierce, this series, uh, I have
not read it, but my wife read all of these
over the past several months, and she really enjoyed these.
But I have not read it yet. She recommended it
to me. But what I did read recently, this has

(04:55):
nothing to do with Mercury, but I greatly enjoyed the
novel The Devils by Joe Ambercrombie. Terrific read. It's a
fantasy sort of alternate earth sort of a novel. I'd
seen a lot of people recommend it to me. And
then I finally picked, um, both the book and the
audio book up and it was kind of like bouncing
back and forth between the two formats and, um, just

(05:18):
legitimately the best time I've had reading a fiction book
in a very long time. Nice. So free recommendation there.
And it's got, it's got lots of horror stuff in it.
So if you need something for Halloween, uh, listeners, I, I,
I recommend it. And it's also good for Christmas any month,
any month.

Speaker 3 (05:33):
It's a good read. Uh, as far as, uh, Kim
Stanley Robinson recommendations go, I have recommended on the show
before his novel Aurora, and he's got big series to
like the Mars series and stuff, but the Aurora is
like a standalone novel. Uh, and I think it's really
interesting because it is a, it's a science fiction novel

(05:55):
that's about space exploration, but ends up being very much
about the virtues of earth. And I think that's a,
it's beautiful in that regard.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
Hmm. Nice. All right, we have another one here related
to Mercury. I might as well read this one. This
one comes to us from Andrew. Andrew says, Joe and Robert,
congratulations for getting on Netflix. Now that Andrew has mentioned it, yes,
we are on Netflix. If you are not currently watching

(06:26):
and listening via Netflix, we'll just remind you that we
are on there. So if you want the video in
addition to the audio, you will find all of our
more recent episodes on there.

Speaker 1 (06:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (06:37):
It's not a different show. It's the video version of
the same podcast we release in audio form.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
Exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (06:43):
You can consume however you like.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
Yeah. So Andrew continues here and says, I liked the
first episode on Mercury. I really enjoyed the episodes you
did on the moons of Jupiter, Jupiter's children, and Saturn,
Saturn's brood. I listened to them a few times. I
liked the cold openings. The narrative of the opening gives
me a feeling of nostalgia for before I was born,
when radio was just invented. It was the idea of

(07:06):
being physically separated from other people, yet being connected to
other people's voices.

Speaker 3 (07:11):
Andrew. Well, thanks, Andrew. Yeah, we had a lot of
fun making those episodes back in the day. I'd say
to be frank, a big difference was just back then
we had more time to work on individual episodes. So we, uh, could,
you know, script out narrative openings and, and I was
making music for some individual episodes and stuff. I made
music for those. And, um, so I don't know that

(07:33):
that was really fun. Um, maybe someday if we ever get,
you know, you know, breaks in the schedule or some padding,
we can do stuff like that again. But these days there's,
there's just not usually time for that.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
Yeah. We haven't done a cold open like that in
a while. Um, I guess I would make time for
it if a really good idea came to me, but
it just hasn't of late. But, you know, I'll think
about it. Maybe something will come to mind in the future.
But there is something to be said for the connection
to disembodied voices, right? I mean, that's been a huge

(08:04):
part of what has made podcasts popular. And I think
that is something that a number of our listeners can
resonate with. And certainly that's something It resonates with me
when I think about the different audio programs that I
put on. So, yeah, there's this interesting connection to old-timey
radio to be found in our modern media consumption.

Speaker 3 (08:22):
Okay, I'm going to read this message from Kieran about
the dog days of summer, the boys of summer, and
then a bunch of other topics. Kieran goes all over
the place. Kieran, warning, we may have to make some
abbreviations to this email because it's a long one, as
you say. Kieran says, Hi, Joe and Rob. Kieran from

(08:46):
New Zealand writing here. I love all your various series
and often feel compelled to chime in, but time and
energy does not always permit. Yet here I am at
the keyboard, finally. So please excuse me if I cover
a variety of topics. First off, I love the amount
of Don Henley coverage the recent Dog Days series included.
I couldn't help thinking of another key Dog Days related

(09:06):
piece of media. Florence and the Machines at Dog Days
Are Over. You know the song, Rob?

Speaker 2 (09:11):
I was having to look it up. I think I'd
heard it before. And it is timely that we're discussing
it now because dog days are over.

Speaker 3 (09:20):
Officially, at our latitude.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
For our latitude. So it is a fitting tune to
be discussing.

Speaker 3 (09:27):
The way Kieran summarizes it is, it's less about the
Dylan Thomas-inspired summer as a metaphor for the end of
youth and death. And more of a ripper that we're
through the dog days. Perhaps it's a track to listen
to when the first cooler days of autumn arrive. Well,
we may be past the astronomical dog days, but it

(09:47):
is still hot as heck up here this week.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
But I think there's been a shift. I mean, it
may get super hot again, but yeah, I was just
at the pool yesterday and it felt like... the first
time I was at the pool where it felt like
summer was beginning to slip away. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (10:05):
We took our daughter to the, uh, museum this weekend.
And I just, the walk short walk from the museum
parking lot to the entrance of the museum was like
going through a level of hell. It was unbelievable. Just
searing sun. Uh, but yeah, maybe, maybe it is subsiding.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (10:24):
I guess I've been indoor cat a lot the past
few days. Uh, anyway, uh, where was, oh yeah. Kieran says, uh,
learning about the dog star serious was fascinating. Uh, The
title of the aforementioned Dog Days song had a great
ring to it, of course, but now I have something
to pin it on. I went and looked this song
up again and I had heard it before, but it

(10:47):
seems like the lyrics are kind of about like coming
out of a dark place in your life and into
a kind of happiness and a sudden unexpected happiness.

Speaker 2 (10:55):
It's a good feeling. Yeah, that sounds good.

Speaker 3 (10:58):
Let's see. Kieran goes on to say, as you in
the northern hemisphere are in the season of the dog star,
we too in the southern hemisphere, in particular here in
New Zealand, are in the season of the rising of
the star cluster of Matariki, a.k.a. the Pleiades. Whereas Sirius
is linked to cursed stellar emanations, cloying heat and unfounded

(11:20):
connections to rabies, Matariki is linked to something far more
positive and hopeful. It's the Maori New Year. Officially, it
was celebrated on the 10th of July. As far as
I know, it's the world's first public holiday based on
indigenous beliefs. I could say more, but for brevity's sake,
I'll include a few links if you're curious. And then

(11:41):
Kieran does. And then Kieran says, I'm wondering, have you
ever done episodes or a series on the Pleiades? I'd
love to hear more as well. Your series often seem
to blow my mind, whatever the subject. I'll quickly add
that we are not immune to the dog star here,
as at full height, its madness-inducing powers seem to infuse
our Christmas rush during December with an extra degree of

(12:03):
heat and craziness. Yeah, y'all get the hot Christmas. Next topic,
this is taking us actually to Weird House Cinema. Kieran says,
The Soldier and Death. I was absolutely delighted that this
episode from Jim Henson's The Storyteller was featured on Weird
House Cinema. I saw the episode as a nine-year-old, and

(12:23):
it left a tremendous impression on me. The soldier, who
in the end could not enter heaven or hell for
his misdeeds, left to the melancholic wandering of Earth echoed
in my mind for decades. I acquired the DVD in
the 2000s and still enjoy a regular rewatch. I did
a rewatch not too long ago, and my four-year-old daughter

(12:43):
watched along with me. After seeing the Soldier in Death
episode along with me, uh, parentheses, big screams when the
card playing devils turn up.

Speaker 2 (12:52):
Ha ha.

Speaker 3 (12:53):
She told me off and said, dad, don't ever watch
that again. Uh, only Satsuki and Mei from now on,
which are the two sisters from My Neighbor Totoro. Also,
also a favorite of my daughter. There is something so
absolutely charming about the use of rotoscoping and other effects
in lieu of the more advanced techniques to come in

(13:15):
the future that often inspires my own creative endeavors. But
of course, it's the puppetry that is utterly exceptional and
still looks so brilliant even to this day, especially the
card-playing devils featured in the episode. Just fantastic. I want
to focus on the character of Death, however. I felt
this depiction of or this character in the episode related

(13:36):
well to your Faces of Death series, as it seemed
to incorporate aspects of all of the dominant three modes
in which death has been depicted in history. Yeah, this
is calling back to when we did a series on
personifications of death in the popular imagination and throughout culture.

(13:56):
There are some archetypes that pop up again and again,
different ways that people seem to picture death. And so
Kieran's going to run through these. Kieran says, if I
remember correctly, there was the equivalent of the sinister or
wicked trickster, the automaton, and the kind or caring mother.
When death is first depicted at the king's bed in

(14:17):
The Soldier in Death, it appears immediately dangerous, harmful, devious,
or menacing. The character design of death is immediately perceived
this way, something other and creepy. But as we learn
in the story, death serves a function. Death is a necessity. We,
the viewers, simply see death almost like a creature of instinct.
It doesn't choose to kill you and take your soul.

(14:40):
It simply operates by some divine design, impersonal, like the law.
I perceive this after the soldier makes his bargain for
the Tsar's soul. The character of death is almost mechanistic,
like an automaton. Then finally, we see how death is trapped.
Without the function of death in the world, we see
the never-ending suffering of humanity, where for some, death is

(15:02):
the kindest option. Finally, when death is released from the sack,
we see it flee in fear, far away from the soldier.
The viewers perceive the face as kind and even concerned
for those it has not been able to serve. This,
of course, is the caring mother. And all along, the
character design never changes, yet our perception of it does

(15:23):
as the story progresses. I guess this comes down to
the mastery of the character the Hinson team had acquired
over years of design and construction. It still amazes me
to this day. Oh, that's very interesting, Kieran. Yeah, so
the way that the... One thing we talked about in
the Weird House episode is the way the design of
the death puppet... there is full of um ambiguities it

(15:45):
seems to exist in this middle space it looks both
young and old both male and female both kind and
threatening it's like all these it's many ambiguities and uh
ambivalences uh and so yeah you can see in those
all of the main archetypes of death and the the
way uh it fits into the narrative also Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:08):
And I love how also in that episode, there are
times where you don't really understand the scale of the entity.
And so there are times where you just assume it
is like normal human size. And then other times it
looks quite small, you know, it's like an elf or something.
Like a little creature. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (16:25):
And then Kieran says, incidentally, many years ago, you mentioned
the design of the Minotaur in the Storyteller's Greek Myth series,
capturing both monstrous aggression and utter pity and human suffering perfectly.
A similar case of multiple interpretations, much like the death
character discussed earlier. Anyway, you may find my ideas around

(16:45):
this a bit of a stretch, but just thought I
would share them. No, Kieran, I think that's interesting. Yeah,
and I would argue correct.

Speaker 2 (16:53):
Yeah, yeah. I mean, this is why Jim Henson's crew
were so great at what they did. There was nothing
in character design and puppet fabrication that was taken for
granted at all. Certainly not in performance either. They put
a lot of work into it. It wasn't just like,
let's make a puppet of this and see how it
comes together.

Speaker 3 (17:13):
No. All right, Kieran, you got a lot of good
stuff in this email, but it's running pretty long, so
we're going to have to skip over some things. Maybe
we'll come back to some of them in the future.
One thing we should mention, because we did ask you
all about this, is following up on listeners trying to
guess my favorite bands. I mentioned Joe's Taste in Music,

(17:35):
the guessing game here. Kieran says, I remember Joe saying
his daughter loved his Black Sabbath record. So Sabbath, obviously.
I feel like this came up the last listener email
about this, but yes, that's true. And I would say
Black Sabbath Records, plural. And these are literally, I feel
like people are going to suspect that I tried to
force my daughter to be like this, but no, she

(17:56):
literally like it's the most common piece of music other
than the soundtrack of a movie that she likes. It
is the thing she asks for the most. She likes
the Skeleton record, which is Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath, and she
likes Paranoid, and she also likes the Coughing record, which
is the one that starts with Sweet Leaf. Master of Reality. Anyway,

(18:20):
Kieran says, I was also wondering if you liked Pentangle.
I noticed a real reverence for their sound regarding the
folk horror run of films on Weird House. Not psych
rock slash metal, but perhaps the psych with a twist
of folk will suffice? A recommendation for Joe. an album
from Kiwi psych rock duo Earth Tongue's Dungeon Vision, which

(18:41):
was produced by Master of the Fuzz pedal Ty Siegel.
They're doing a U.S. tour currently, but didn't see Atlanta mentioned. Wah-wah,
still check them out. I was not familiar with Earth Tongue,
but I've got them on the list. I'm going to
check them out after we record.

Speaker 2 (18:57):
Now, are you familiar with Pentangle, though?

Speaker 3 (18:59):
A little bit, yeah. I know Pentangle. I'm not like.
I'm not conversant on them. I've listened to them before
and liked them, but I don't know one album from another.

Speaker 2 (19:09):
Yeah, I'm pretty much the same. I'd listened to them
a little bit before, and I listened to them right
before the episode. I did remind myself that their music
factors into the 1970 film Tam Lin. This is the
Roddy McDowell-directed full-car film. I think his only directorial feature

(19:29):
But one that I've not seen, but it's been on
my list for a while to potentially check out for
Weird House. Totally.

Speaker 3 (19:36):
Let's bump it up the list. Escalate the queue. Let's see. OK,
so we're going to close out Kieran's email here. Some
parting words. Kieran says, really appreciate you reading to this point.
Sorry if this comes off as too parasocial. but you're
both so great to listen to. Your consistent calm, curiosity,
critical thinking and humor bring a lot of good to

(19:57):
the world. So thanks and keep up the good work.
Very kind words. Thank you, Kieran. Oh, and thanks for
the send off regarding the great Sam Neill on Weird House,
a fantastic New Zealander. I know that many New Zealanders,
myself included, share immense pride in all he achieved during
his acting career whilst always being a down-to-earth, solid guy.
He will be greatly missed by so many. Okay, bye.

(20:20):
Thank you, Kieran. Excellent email.

Speaker 2 (20:22):
Yes, absolutely. Well, let's see. You know, we have another
one right here below it in our outline. This one's
from Lee. And Lee says, Greetings, Rob, Joe, and JJ.
I hope all is well with you as we get
into August. Obviously, we received this one a little while ago.

(20:45):
But it's also important to note because some of the
content of the episode. Lee says, I'm about two weeks
behind in my podcast feed, largely due to the number
I listen to. Anyway, in your Dog Day series, you
have a brief side quest into Don Henley. that sent
me on a side quest, a memory was jogged loose
of hearing the phrase The Boys of Summer as a
baseball reference. Pursuing the rabbit led me, of course, to

(21:09):
Don Henley, but tweaking my search a bit, I found it.
And I think this may be something we referred to
in passing, maybe in an episode after the one that
Lee's referring to here. The Boys of Summer is a
retrospective nickname for the Brooklyn Dodgers, stemming from a book
by Roger Kahn published in 1972. While the title did

(21:30):
indeed come from the poem by Dylan Thomas, the book
looks at the Brooklyn Dodgers team from the 40s through
their 1955 World Series win. There may be some allusion
to the end of the baseball season in addition to
the romantic relationships mentioned in the song.

Speaker 3 (21:45):
Wait, it's a book about baseball and the title is
actually inspired by the Dylan Thomas poem?

Speaker 2 (21:51):
Yes, yes. And this had come up in my research
because you will find sources online claiming that this book
was the inspiration for Don Henley in writing the lyrics
to The Boys of Summer. And from what I can tell,
he says that's not the case. I've seen him point
out in interviews like, yeah, I'm a big baseball fan,

(22:13):
but I'd actually never read this book. I wasn't familiar
with this book. So taking him on his word for
that seems to be the case. But it is frequently cited.
There are a lot of You look around online and
people will point this out as saying that this is
directly connected to the song when really it's more like
a triangle of inspirations here.

Speaker 3 (22:34):
I'm just still stuck on actually being able to have
the Dylan Thomas in mind while you're thinking about this
sport you love. So you go to the baseball game,
you get your peanuts and your beer and you sit
down and think about how youth and vigor inevitably lead
to death and decay.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
I mean, baseball fans are complex. I mean, I'm, I'm,
I'm not one of them, but I mean, you look
at guys like Stephen King, you know, he written, he
wrote at least one whole book about being a baseball fan. Yeah.
I mean, this is, this is a good essay topic.

Speaker 3 (23:04):
Baseball is death.

Speaker 2 (23:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:06):
Somebody writes that.

Speaker 2 (23:07):
Yeah. I, like I said, I just, I don't have
a very deep relationship with baseball. It's extremely surface level. So,
you know, I can't even really speak to all this,
but you know, I think we can, We can think
of two other interests we have. And, you know, if
it fills that occupies a significant portion of your life,
it ends up sort of leeching into the other things
that you think about. I guess so. Let's see a

(23:28):
little more from Lee here concerning baseball. It looks like
more recently, the local minor league team, the Richmond Flying Squirrels,
has occasionally had a pep band play at games called
the Boys of Summer. Unfortunately, my only online reference I
can find online is for an Eagles tribute band out
of New York. My memory may have been from pre-internet
days when the Squirrels were the Richmond Braves and part

(23:52):
of Atlanta's farm system. Still cool and does tie it together.
Love the podcast. Always look forward to each episode. Sincerely, Lee. Well,
I don't have much to say about any of the
baseball stuff, but I appreciate folks writing in about it
because certainly this is all stuff that's kind of outside
of my knowledge. Anytime we have sports questions, it's great
to hear from folks.

Speaker 3 (24:13):
Okay, you want to move on to some messages about
the Prairie series?

Speaker 2 (24:17):
Sure.

Speaker 3 (24:18):
I'll do this one from Troy. Subject line, The Little
House Books. Hi, Robert and Joe. Recently, my daughter and
I finished reading the complete Little House series by Laura
Ingalls Wilder. And I think both of you would really
enjoy the books. They're full of hardship on an almost
apocalyptic scale, with plenty of action and some wonderful character development.

(24:43):
I'm originally from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and I mostly
remember seeing lots and lots of farmland. I do remember
seeing a grassland wildfire once. It didn't seem particularly threatening
at the time because it was at night, and although
the fire line was very long, it wasn't very wide.
I remember thinking it could almost jump over the fire

(25:03):
line because all the grass behind it had already burned.
In the Little House books, Charles, Laura's father, is constantly
trying to make a living as a farmer, but they
are repeatedly plagued by disasters. Wildfires destroy their crops. Enormous
swarms of grasshoppers or locusts eat virtually everything. We talked
about that in the part of the series about the

(25:25):
locust plague. And even migrating birds sometimes descend on the
fields and devour what is left. At least when the
birds came, they could shoot some of them and have
birds too. You also mentioned prairie madness, and that made
me think of one of the more unsettling episodes in
the books. When Laura is very young, she takes a

(25:45):
teaching job away from home to earn money, partly so
that her older sister Mary, who is blind, can attend
the school for the blind. Laura stays with a host family,
and the wife is extremely unhappy with her life on
the prairie and constantly longs to return east. At one point,
Laura describes the woman becoming so distraught that she screams

(26:05):
at her husband and approaches him in bed carrying a
butcher knife. It's probably the most disturbing episode in the
entire series. Despite that, the books are remarkably riveting and
overall surprisingly uplifting. One thing I learned from the books
was that wolves actually roamed the open prairie. I had
always pictured wolves as animals of the mountains, so that
was new to me, and I had no idea that

(26:26):
grizzly bears once inhabited the open prairie either until you
mentioned it on the podcast. Thanks for the great episodes, Troy.
Thank you, Troy.

Speaker 2 (26:34):
Yeah, I mean, that does sound very much in keeping
with the trope of prairie madness.

Speaker 1 (26:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
And certainly the bit about the wolves also matches up
with what we were researching. And all this really makes sense.
I know that the series, Little House on the Prairie,
has been popular for a very long time. It was
popular when I was a kid and long before I
was a kid. And I noticed that it looks like
there is a new multi-part adaptation, a new television series,

(27:02):
at least it's available streaming. I believe it's actually on Netflix.
So I haven't watched it yet, but Clearly, that speaks
to the popularity of the series and the types of
stories that it tells. All right, let's see. What else
do we have here? And the old listener mail. Maybe
I'll do a shorter one. If I can find one. Oh,

(27:25):
here's a bag. Well, this is not a shorter one,
but it'll be good to get into here. This one
comes to us from Jeff. Subject line, Dark Buffalo is
the Hulk. And he... proceeds as follows. Hey guys, the
Lewis and Clark shenanigans made me curious as to whether

(27:48):
you've heard of the Mad Trapper. Okay, I didn't know
what they were talking about at this point. Ever since
learning about him, I've interpreted his tale as tragic, yes,
but also a crazy, hilarious, cartoon-like story of a guy
who just really, really wanted to be left alone. Apparently,
he was just some suspicious dude in the Yukon authorities

(28:10):
wanted to question. He was spectacularly uncooperative, and they had
no interest in de-escalation. Eventually, this led to an Elmer
Fudd vs. Bugs Bunny-style siege on his cabin, where increasingly
large groups of Mounties were sent to interrogate him, and
each returned empty-handed with casualties, until eventually they blew his
house up with dynamite, which still didn't defeat him. He escaped,

(28:32):
and there was a manhunt involving more and more Mounties, trackers,
and ultimately a military pilot searching from the air. By
the time of the weeks-long chase, or I guess by
the time it ended, it was a popular running story
in the newspapers. Finally, his frozen body was found, and
the media described his face as being, quote, frozen into
a mask of evil and terror, or something like that. Okay.

Speaker 3 (28:56):
I don't know anything about the story. I'd never heard
of this.

Speaker 2 (29:01):
People have for years tried to figure out who the
trapper was and what was his deal, but his identity
remains a mystery. They've made some movies based on the story,
but on first glance, they didn't look weird houseable. Whenever
my Canadian friend and I are around a new person,
I like to describe the Mad Trapper as, quote, Canada's
greatest folk hero and explain that once a year kids
dress up as him while other kids pretending to be

(29:23):
Mounties chase them around, while my exasperated friend just shakes
his head and says, no, no, he isn't. It's not
anything like that, and so forth. Any chance Rob has
some ancestral memories of this potential X-Man? Um, Wolverine. I mean,
I guess it's, it's tempting to sort of apply a
Wolverine template to this particular, uh, figure. Um, yeah, this

(29:47):
is a figure that I think is commonly understood to
be a man by the name of Albert Johnson. Um,
I haven't researched it in a bit, but I think
it's one of those things where we don't 100% know
who he was. But the story of the Mad Trapper,
I was familiar with because I saw one of the
movie adaptations. I caught part of it on TV when

(30:09):
I was a kid. It's a 1981 movie titled Death Hunt.
And I would agree, as I recall, it's not very
weird housey. It's pretty boiled down. But, um, it has
a pretty great cast. It has Charles Bronson in it
playing the trapper. You got Lee Marvin, I believe playing
like the lead Mountie that's up against him or the lead,

(30:31):
you know, authority figure. And then you got some other
interesting members of the cast, including Scott Highlands plays the
pilot of the airplane. Scott Highlands has been in a
bunch of stuff. He's come up on weird house. Um,
he played the, um, the older guy in charge of
the Arborea Institute in beyond the black rainbow. Um, I
think he's passed in recent years, but his acting credits

(30:53):
go way back. But I remember finding the film slightly
weird because it just was not a scenario I'd ever
thought about. Like, I'd done part of my growing up
exposed to the Mounties, and the Mounties were presented to
me in a very glowing light. Like, surely the main
character in a film wouldn't be going up against the Mounties.
It just seemed weird. But again, I've not actually watched

(31:18):
this as a, as a grown person, just childhood memories
of catching it on TV.

Speaker 3 (31:24):
So the movie, does the movie kind of make this
character out to be the hero?

Speaker 2 (31:27):
Like, you know, that's my vague memory of it, but
also I don't know how many antihero sort of movies
I'd really watched. So I might've been, I might've been
personally confused as a kid as to how I was
supposed to take all of this. But I think that
was the case. That's my impression.

Speaker 3 (31:44):
I'll just say I don't know enough about the story
to make a judgment. So this is should not be
taken as an endorsement of the criminal known as Albert Johnson.
I don't know what he was actually up to. Could
have been bad stuff for all I know.

Speaker 1 (31:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:56):
But anyway, I was not expecting to. I had not
really thought about this movie in a long time. So
I was impressed. So enjoyed some back and forth there
responding to to Jeff about all of this. And Jeff
did also provide an image for us here. Send us
a picture of two. let us know what Henry Rollins
looked like before he became a buffer individual. I mean,

(32:19):
I wasn't really doubtful. I don't remember ever seeing these images.
But yeah, I guess he was less beefy back in
the days, back in the Black Flag days, right?

Speaker 3 (32:28):
How did that come up on the podcast?

Speaker 2 (32:30):
I don't even remember. Maybe it was another listener mail
or something. Because again, I think of Henry Rollins, I
just think of Rollins Band era, like buff Henry Rollins.

Speaker 3 (32:41):
But legend tells once there was.

Speaker 2 (32:44):
A skinny Rollins. There was a blank year. Yeah. Henry, yes,
back in the day.

Speaker 3 (32:48):
Okay, are you all right if I do this message
from Ahmed?

Speaker 2 (32:51):
Yeah, let's do it.

Speaker 3 (32:52):
Ahmed writes in, Ahmed, frequent correspondent, always has great emails.
Subject line here, Plains Indian Sign Language. Ahmed says, Hi folks,
great series about the prairie. I wanted to write in
about not so much the ecology, but rather the linguistic

(33:14):
history of the native people of the prairie. Specifically, I
wanted to mention Plains Indian Sign Language, or PISL, also
sometimes known as hand talk, as well as by other names.
If you Google a map of language families of North America,
The first thing you're struck by is, wow, that is
a lot of language families. For those like myself whose

(33:37):
default setting is Indo-European mode, with languages as seemingly different
as English, Russian, Armenian, and Hindi all being members of
one large family, it can be mind-boggling to look at.
There are some particularly dense areas of the continent, like California,
but the plains and prairies are certainly not slacking either.
An ingenious system that Native people developed to communicate with

(34:00):
other groups speaking unrelated languages on the plains was PISL,
which is a bona fide language, not just spontaneous gesticulating,
and has a systematized grammar of over-my-head rules. This really
doesn't give itself to podcasting, but here is a video
from a 1930 meeting of indigenous plains leaders that a U.S.

(34:22):
officer organized to document PISL that shows it in action. Rob,
so I looked at this video earlier, but you can
look it up. And so, yeah, this is a man
signing as he speaks, and it's got some like subtitles
and narration along. So, yeah, you can get the interpretation
of what he's saying. Ahmed says, just some of the
distinct unrelated language families and their Plains members include Siouan

(34:46):
with members like Lakota and Crow, Yudo Aztecan like Comanche
and Shoshone, Cadowan like Pawnee and Wichita, Tenoan, like Kiowa,
and Algik, like Arapaho and Cheyenne. It truly is a
stunning diversity, though it unfortunately will not be surprising to
learn that while some of these languages are still vibrant,

(35:08):
many are either threatened or extinct after centuries of genocide, displacement,
and forced assimilation policies. It really is a sobering reminder
about what has been lost and what, owing to the
resilience of the native people of this continent, still remains.
PISL and jargons are such a great example of the
human drive to communicate with others across cultural and linguistic differences,

(35:32):
and they might make a good topic for a Stuff
to Blow Your Mind podcast someday. Anyway, keep up the
great work, Ahmed. Thank you, Ahmed. Yeah, really interesting.

Speaker 2 (35:40):
Absolutely. Thanks for writing in.

Speaker 3 (35:42):
I would definitely like to learn more about this. I'm
really interested by the question of why it would be
hand gestures instead of just like a secondary shared language,
you know, that, that is shared by a bunch of different, uh,
language groups to communicate between each other, uh, a second
spoken language. Why go to hand gestures? I'm, I'm sure
there's some, some interest in that.

Speaker 2 (36:02):
So, yeah.

Speaker 3 (36:03):
Um, anyway, very cool. Thanks Ahmed.

Speaker 2 (36:14):
All right. Here's another one. This one comes to us
from Abby. Subject line, I love your work. Thank you
for Rocky Erickson. Before we even get into it, we
can help share the word of Rocky Erickson, but we
had no active role in the creation.

Speaker 3 (36:30):
Of Rocky Erickson. Did not invent him. Though I'm tempted
to try to work that into his lyrics somehow. Spare
me your theory, alien eye creator.

Speaker 2 (36:40):
Yeah, he might have had a different take on it.
At any rate, Abby writes in and says, Dear Robert
and Joe, thank you from the bottom of my heart
for the work you do. Over the last year, Stuff
to Pull Your Mind has quickly become a highlight of
my week. I love the mix of science, mythology, and
other interesting random facts you bring to the exploration of
invariably interesting topics. Your delivery and rapport is impeccable. Please

(37:01):
never stop. As someone who loves good music, all things gothic,
and intriguing lyricism that invites further investigation, example, placebo's Brian
Mulk's Cerebral Lyricism. I don't know this artist.

Speaker 3 (37:16):
I don't know enough about this either.

Speaker 2 (37:17):
Okay, so someone else write in, or certainly Abby write
in and give us a little more to go on there.
But anyway, they continue. I cannot believe I was not
previously aware of Rocky Erickson. Thank you very much for
bringing him to my attention in your From the Vault podcast, St.
Swithin's Revenge. I now love this quote-unquote Halloween man and
his intriguing backstory. It's a great thing to find someone

(37:38):
who combines complicated, symbol-laden lyricism, psychological vulnerabilities, and highly listenable music.
Thank you for this valued addition to my playlist.

Speaker 3 (37:49):
Well, I'm so glad you're enjoying Rocky. And for folks
who don't remember, the Halloween man is a reference to
what my daughter said about Rocky Erickson. She also loves
Rocky Erickson and requests to listen to Two-Headed Dog. But
she said, I think what she said about him is
he's just a Halloween guy. That's accurate.

Speaker 2 (38:06):
Yeah, I think he would have agreed with that. I've
occasionally had the song. The rest of my family is
not as crazy about Rocky Erickson. I think I played
some for my kiddo once. And it was Bloody Hammer.
And they were like, what are we listening to? They
weren't a fan. But fair enough. They don't have to
like everything I like. Let's see. From there, Abby goes

(38:28):
on to bring up the question regarding the term at all.
When we're referring to studies where there are multiple authors,
and sometimes we'll say, oh, this is a study by
Rocky Erickson et al., referring to Rocky Erickson in this
hypothetical case, his fellow researchers and writers that are helping
put together a study. And they bring up the idea

(38:51):
that when saying et al. out loud in a podcast,
one should maybe say, and colleagues, I've also seen it
recommended that people should say, and others should And I
think sometimes on the show, I mean, I'll just say
at all, because it's also the fastest, easiest thing to say.
And maybe that's a bit of a crutch. But other times,
I think I will say, and, you know, the other
investigators or the co-authors and so forth. But yeah, apologies

(39:16):
for any confusion that's caused anyone in the past wondering
what in the world we were saying. I know it
has confused some people from time to time.

Speaker 3 (39:23):
Yeah, you're correct, Abby. I think people would, it would
probably be clearer to everyone if we just said and
co-authors or and others or and colleagues. But yes, I'm
probably not going to remember to do that every time.
But your recommendation is appreciated. You are correct that that's
easier for everybody to understand.

Speaker 2 (39:44):
Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, anytime there's a topic like that,
feel free to write it. We're always happy to to
be corrected or consider an alternate way of doing things.

Speaker 3 (39:54):
Uh, let's see. Uh, Ooh, I can do, uh, this
short message from Elena about an older episode on oil
and troubled water. Oh, yes. Can we refresh on the
topic here? What was the inspiration for this?

Speaker 2 (40:07):
This was, and I forget where, um, I ran across it. Uh,
I'd have to go back and listen to the episode
myself to remind myself, but, uh, it's this old idea
that stormy waters could be, um, essentially cured by adding
some amount of oil to it. And it depended on
the telling, but sometimes as little as like a vial

(40:27):
of oil could be thrown into the ocean in order
to somehow calm the waters. And so we did, I
can't remember if it was a one part, two part
series or whatnot, but we got into it and we
discussed like what science there is there, and there is
a little bit, but then also like how this ends
up sort of echoing through popular beliefs across time. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (40:48):
It's been a while, but my memory is that the,
the folklore of this is exaggerated. Like I think exaggerates
how effective it is, but there is some truth to it.
Like it is based on a real physics principle. Yeah.
So Elena says, hello, Robert and Joe. I was reading

(41:09):
the scarlet letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Okay. Uh, and came
across a passage that reminded me of an episode of
the show. So in this story, Dr. Roger Chillingworth wants
to give Hester Prynne, his estranged wife and the main
character of the novel, a medicine. And he says, drink it.
It may be less soothing than a sinless conscience, but

(41:31):
that that I cannot give thee. But it will calm
the swell and heaving of thy passion like oil thrown
on the waves of a tempestuous sea.

Speaker 2 (41:41):
Elena.

Speaker 3 (41:42):
Thank you, Elena.

Speaker 2 (41:43):
A clear reference to the idea that oil could be
used to soothe troubled water. Nice.

Speaker 3 (41:49):
When I read this in high school, I would have
had no idea what that was talking about.

Speaker 2 (41:54):
Yeah, same. Oh, here's another quickie. Quinn writes in and says,
Hey guys, just a general question here regarding the Stuffed
to Blow Your Mind logo, which to my eyes resembles
a stylized molecule. I wonder if it represents anything specific
or if it's just a cool design. Thanks, Quint.

Speaker 3 (42:14):
My memory when we were coming up with logo options
is that it is not supposed to be a molecule
in particular or anything concrete. I think the closest to
what it's supposed to represent is just like connections between ideas.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
Yeah, it's supposed to represent connections. But that being said,
it's supposed to look a little bit like molecules, maybe,
you know, if that's in the DNA there somewhere. Maybe
it's supposed to look a little bit Jack Kirby. And
then it's hilarious, but multiple people have over time said
that when they look at it, they see Jake the

(42:51):
dog from Adventure Time, which was absolutely not our intent
as much as I love Adventure Time. But it's an
interpretation that I've never able to shake. So sometimes I'll
just look at our logo when I'm doing something, pulling
up one of our social accounts, and I'll just have
that thought that it's like, oh, yeah, I guess it
does kind of look like Jake the dog.

Speaker 3 (43:09):
I don't know Adventure Time.

Speaker 2 (43:11):
Oh, well, it's a great show. I recommend it to
anyone looking for a family-friendly, fantastic, but ultimately weird animated adventure.
This was a Cartoon Network show. It went for multiple,
multiple seasons, and I think there's still some spinoffs from
it occurring. But it's like a post-apocalyptic fantasy world of

(43:34):
magic and outdated technology. Uh, there's a, uh, there's a
Finn the human, there's Jake the dog, they're friends, they
go on adventures, lots of Dungeons and Dragons references, fantasy
and sci-fi references. Uh, I believe that the key creator
behind it was, is this guy Pendleton Ward. Uh, so it's, uh, yeah,
it's worth checking out. Anyone out there who's not familiar

(43:55):
with it, I, I give it a, a firm recommendation. Cool.
But it is not connected to our logo in any way. Uh, okay.

Speaker 3 (44:03):
Do you want to do a couple of these Weird
House Cinema messages?

Speaker 2 (44:06):
Yeah, let's do it.

Speaker 3 (44:08):
Take your pick.

Speaker 2 (44:09):
All right. Well, here's one that comes to us from Tom.
And this one's fitting because it concerns one of the
most recent Rewind episodes of the show and ties into
Star Trek week, which is happening as we record this
and will have just happened when this publishes. So Tom says, hi,

(44:35):
Rob and Joe. This is Tom from Canada. I heard
the rewind of your Wrath of Khan episode, and a
few things came to mind. I'm almost certain that I
watched this at the theater back in the day, but
my main memories around it have to do with the
overall public reaction to it. It seemed that Star Trek
was back, and it seemed to mean a lot to
a lot of people. I was a young man and

(44:57):
never quite understood the almost cult-like relationship the fans had
with it, but I understand it now. And through the
endless iterations of the franchise at large, Star Trek holds
a place few other shows can approximate. As for the
quality of these iterations, one thing is clear to me.
When the writers and producers take it for granted that
the associated name and any associated gimmicks are enough, the

(45:20):
show fails miserably. But it truly works when great storytelling
is the horse and outer space is just the cart. P.S.
I contacted you guys a long time back pertaining to
Robot Monster. that movie permanently kicked me out of the
serious tree. You know, that tree that people live in
who love to tell other people about their quote-unquote refined
taste in film. Keep up the good work, Tom. Thank you, Tom.

Speaker 3 (45:44):
You know, I'd say you can appreciate fine art in
cinema and Robot Monster. They're not mutually exclusive.

Speaker 2 (45:50):
Yeah, yeah. I think it's best to go back and
forth between the two. But, I mean, yeah, this is,
I think, a great observation about Star Trek in general is, yeah, when...
kind of goes for everything, right? I mean, when the
storytelling is great, that just brings everything together. And if
the writing is maybe a little bit lazy and you're

(46:11):
taking it for granted, it's probably not going to be
as good. But Wrath of Khan is one of those
films where certainly everything lines up.

Speaker 3 (46:26):
Okay, this next message is from Steven. Subject line, about
your gargoyles chat. Horror in the Helter Skelter era. I
think this is picking up on something we talked about
in the episode on the made-for-TV horror movie Gargoyles. Is
that a CBS movie or something?

Speaker 2 (46:45):
I don't remember the network offhand, but this was 72. Okay.
And in that episode, we discussed.

Speaker 3 (46:54):
Had kind of a long chat at the beginning about
the history of made for TV movies and particularly made
for TV horror, where we talked about how obviously these
movies are not going to go as hard as, you know,
actual R rated theatrical horror, but they bring their own
kind of doomy weirdness that, you know, it can't be

(47:14):
as dark in terms of explicit content, but often they
have a, just an off vibe that is actually unsettling
in its own way. And I think Stephen's picking up
on that.

Speaker 2 (47:27):
Yeah, because we've covered at this point, I think at
least a couple of made-for-TV horror films from the 1970s.
And they have a unique energy. There's something in the
cultural waters. I mean, there are various things in the
cultural waters, obviously, at the time. And you see that
reflected in the finished product.

Speaker 3 (47:46):
Stephen says, Hey guys, I'm listening to your gargoyles chat
from a while back, and I can especially vibe on
your conversation about the bleak aura that pervaded TV horror
films from that era. I was born in 1958, so
I was a young teen and monster kid who was
watching many of these films from 1968 onward. There was

(48:06):
definitely an existential uneasiness present in TV horror movies in
those days. While they could not present horror as graphically
as Night of the Living Dead or Texas Chainsaw Massacre
or The Exorcist or Rosemary's Baby, there were a lot
of writers and creators who were very clever at putting
together tales of terror. And many of these tales were

(48:26):
quite horrific for their day and their network constraints. The
Dark Secret of Harvest Home, based on the book by
Tom Tryon. Is that the co-star of I Married a
Monster from Outer Space?

Speaker 2 (48:39):
It is, yeah. I think we mentioned this at least
briefly when we were talking about his bio. Yeah, that
he got more and more into writing, wrote a novel,
and this was the TV adaptation of it. I don't
think he was creatively involved in it, but it is
based on his book.

Speaker 3 (48:56):
That's so funny. You don't usually think about that guy
who's like that handsome and is a very good actor
and just decided to transition to writing.

Speaker 2 (49:05):
Yeah. Yeah. But he did and did so quite successfully.

Speaker 3 (49:08):
Yeah. Anyway, so The Dark Secret of Harvest Home, based
on the book by Tom Tryon, the original The Night
Stalker vampire TV movie, Richard Matheson again, the miniseries of
Salem's Lot by Stephen King. These were some of the best.
If you're looking for more 70s TV horror films that
are weird and good, let me suggest Trilogy of Terror,

(49:30):
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, Someone's Watching Me, Dark
Knight of the Scarecrow. and, of course, Duel. Oh, I've
had Scarecrows on the brain recently. We might be talking
about them a bit this October.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
I believe so. Trilogy of Terror, I was just chatting
about this with the gal who cuts my hair. We
were talking about October rewatches, and I asked her what
she was looking forward to rewatch, and she said that
she always rewatches Trilogy of Terror. I do love this one.
This is the one based on Matheson's work again, but

(50:02):
it has the little... And I've never seen it myself,
I have to admit. I've never sat down to watch it.
It's an anthology, so it has a few different segments.
But the most notable has a killer fetish doll that
is running around on the floor. And I can't remember
if it has a spear. Again, I haven't seen it myself.

(50:23):
I'm just familiar with the promotional materials for it. But
a lot of people, I think, hold that one dear
because they had some sort of experience watching it on TV.
When they were a kid and it became part of
their horror fan DNA.

Speaker 3 (50:41):
Stephen goes on to say, let me suggest a favorite,
Moon of the Wolf, which has a wonderful southern charm
atmosphere and a host of freaky supporting character red herrings
as to who is the werewolf. Sounds good.

Speaker 2 (50:54):
This one has a great bit of poster art with
a very unique looking werewolf. I've been tempted to check
it out, and it is a New Orleans film. When
I was down at Future Shock Video in New Orleans,
I was chatting with Eden, who owns it, and I
was asking her about this one. And she said it's
not one of her favorites, that she thought it was
a little dry. But I know other people obviously really

(51:17):
love it, so I should come back around to it
and check it out.

Speaker 3 (51:20):
This is a tangent, but as somebody who loves New Orleans, please,
friends who listen, if you have a weird movie set
in New Orleans or New Orleans-related, please send that in.
I want that.

Speaker 2 (51:34):
Mardi Gras Massacre it is, then.

Speaker 3 (51:36):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
Next weird house. Let's see.

Speaker 3 (51:39):
I'm trying to think of one. I think Candyman 2
is set in New Orleans.

Speaker 2 (51:45):
I think. Yeah, I think you're right. And I think.

Speaker 3 (51:49):
Most of the blanking on others.

Speaker 2 (51:52):
I guess it comes down, this goes with most settings,
but I'd say in general, three things need to happen
when you have a film that's filmed and set in
a place. It needs to actually be filmed there, it
needs to actually be set there, and then it needs
to feel like both of those things are true. And
sometimes it's weird how those things don't line up. You
can have a film that is, I don't know, taking

(52:13):
Atlanta for example, you have a film that's filmed in
Atlanta and even set here, but If things are a
little off, certainly as an Atlanta native, you can be like, oh, well,
that's not my city. That's some fairytale view of my city.
I don't know. Obviously, it's going to be different depending
on what your connection to a place is. If you're
a local, if you're a tourist, you just have a more,

(52:34):
certainly for more cinematically featured locations, if you're just familiar
with the movie version of that place.

Speaker 3 (52:42):
Yeah. Yeah, there's something about needing to capture... key outdoor
locations in the movie that are part of the texture
of living there that are not just like the main
tourist hotspots yeah.

Speaker 2 (52:57):
Yeah so yeah i guess it's always there's always a
balance to it.

Speaker 3 (53:01):
For sure anyway steven goes on to say there uh
there were many others like gargoyles that maybe were not
as fully realized or were flawed in some fashion but
they still had uh that helter skelter era tone of
dread that was part and parcel of being alive in
those days and Thanks for another of your many, many
awesome conversations, Steven.

Speaker 2 (53:22):
P.S.

Speaker 3 (53:23):
I watched Dark Shadows also, original TV run. The two
movies made from the series might be of interest to you,
House of Dark Shadows and Night of Dark Shadows. They
are definitely weird. Grayson Hall always swings for the fences
in her performances, and she was a major player in
the movies and the TV show. You know, I don't
know anything about Dark Shadows.

Speaker 2 (53:43):
Oh, it's good. I never did a committed... viewing of
the episodes, but it was one of those shows that
they would air on sci-fi channel when I was a kid.
So it occasionally, I would occasionally catch it. And yeah,
there's just this kind of weird, uh, like daytime television,
Gothic horror, um, vibe to it. And that's, you know,
it feels like a little like cheap and haunted in,

(54:07):
in a perfect way. Uh, it's, it's kind of hard
to really describe exactly how it feels, but, uh, it's unique.

Speaker 3 (54:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (54:15):
Yeah. Barnabas Collins. Yeah. A lot of fun stuff. And
certainly all those like horror themed soap opera, um, narratives
that they're playing with there. Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (54:23):
That's the way I always understood it was as vampire
soap opera, but yeah.

Speaker 2 (54:28):
They got, they're werewolves and I think, you know, magic
users and so forth. So, you know, uh, they're going
to pull in various elements.

Speaker 3 (54:36):
Okay. Does that need to do it for today's episode?

Speaker 2 (54:38):
Yeah, I think that'll do it for today. Certainly anything
that folks want to write in about that we discussed here,
be it, um, dark shadows, or maybe even more dog
days of summer talk. I don't know. I feel like
we've probably run the course for all that. Hopefully, when
next we do a Stuff to Blow Your Mind listener mail,
we shall hopefully have a whole bunch of Halloween content

(55:01):
to talk about, and we'll do our regular sort of
Halloween hangover of Stuff to Blow Your Mind listener mail,
where we'll catch up on all of that.

Speaker 1 (55:09):
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 (55:10):
In the meantime, we'll just remind everyone out there that
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and
culture podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, short
form on Wednesdays. And on Fridays, we set aside most
serious concerns, just talk about a weird film on Weird
House Cinema. And then every so often, we'll throw in
a listener mail episode like this one to just, you know,
run through things that you all have written in about.

(55:31):
As we've often mentioned, we don't have time to read
everything on the air online. We don't have time to
respond to everything that you send in, but we do
read it when it comes in. So, you know, we
greatly appreciate you writing it.

Speaker 3 (55:42):
Totally. Your messages always mean a lot. So please keep
them coming. Huge thanks, as always, to our excellent audio producer,
JJ Posway. If you would like to have a send
a message to the show to maybe be featured on
an episode like this in the future, you can email
us at contact at stuff to blow your mind dot com.

Speaker 1 (56:11):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple
Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.