STBYM Listener Mail: Tofurky Forever

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 (00:08):
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind listener mail.
This is Robert Lamb. Hey, everybody. We were off last
week for Thanksgiving here in the US. I spent the
time traveling with my family in Wales, which was a
tremendous privilege, a great experience, and it's nice to ease
back into the holiday hustle here on the show with
a nice listener mail episode. Now, Joe is out sick today.

(00:31):
He was going to join me, but he had to
take the day off, so wishing him quick recovery. It's
just going to be me today. I've never done a
solo listener mail before. The way it's worked out is
that Joe will often jump in and do the solo
and days when I'm still recovering from a trip or
I'm sick or whatever. So this is a first, so

(00:51):
bear with me. I can't promise that it will be
as exciting as a Joe solo listener mail, but I'll
try and put my own spin on it. All right, Well,
let's call Carne over here and dive into the mail bag.
We have a few bits of listener mail regarding our
episode on euro hydrosis. This is you'll recall this is

(01:14):
the episode where we talked about some animals that may
pee and or poop on their legs as a method
of cooling themselves, and that led to a number of
different discussions. We've talked about evaporative cooling, and we also
talked about peeing in one's wet suit. So let's jump
right into it. This one comes to us from Lindsey.

(01:41):
Lindsay writes, Joe and Robert. Out here in the desert,
we have a very different relationship with humidity and evaporation
than y'all in Atlanta. Look at the de point or
wet bulb weather temps, and that is about best case
for evaporative cooling, to the point that plenty of people
out here go through our one hundred and six degree
summers with a swamp cooler. Prior to common refrigeration, there

(02:04):
was a desert water bag that was just a tight
weave canvas, and in a lot of Mexican areas people
kept a big unglazed pottery jug in the house. These
weeped enough water to be continually cooling. My grandparents, who
went through the depression then the war never threw out anything.
In every pickup tractor and several barns. There was a
glass jug wearing Grandma's technicolor jug jacket. This, as Lindsay adds,

(02:30):
is apparently a quilted cover for a gallon vinegar jug.
Lindsay continues, kept things cool with the occasional breakage. It
kept all of the glass together, stitch together with any
and all possible fabric scraps, so you didn't worry about
a great loss when you did break one. And then
she continues here, getting into the whole idea of peeing

(02:51):
in your wetsuit and whether that is an effective means
of warming the body short term, long term, and so forth.
Robert I was told the same thing going through Rescue
Swimmers Club at NAS Jacksonville, but on the Cutter Valiant.
This is a coast guard ship. I believe she reversed
course so quickly that I skipped the farmer John's and

(03:12):
just grab the wetsuit jacket. When you're coming around fast,
then you're in the water, preoccupied and having to override
a lifetime of toilet training. I never could relax enough
to just let it flow right on, y'all. Lindsey all right,
all right, you know some almost kind of extreme of
consciousness thoughts there. I dig it, especially some added experience

(03:35):
when it comes to the awkwardness of peeing in the water,
peeing in the ocean. I'm glad I'm not alone. I
also heard from one Shadow Rat on our discord. You
might be wondering, Hey, I want to get in on
the stuff to Blow your mind discord. Well, hey, the
way to do that is to email us, and we'll
send you the link to join the discord server for
Stuff to Blow your mind. So just hang on. I'll

(03:57):
throw out that email address at the end of this episode. Anyway,
Shadow Rat shares the following Haha, quoth he, I pee
in my wetsuit all the time. This practice is so
prevalent in the surfing and free diving communities that it's
often offered up as a solution to every problem. Cold
pe in your suit, animal stings, pee on it, having

(04:18):
trouble removing your wet suit, pee in it, Want to
attract marine life, pee in your suit, want to repel
marine life? Pee in your suit, car trouble pee in it,
and so forth. It is important to always be as
stoic and straight faced as possible when advising someone to
pee on it, to convey that this is indeed a
proven method. While there is a warming effect, the main

(04:40):
reason people are peeing in wetsuits is just that there
is no other choice. Nobody wants to stop a dive
or a surf session to go back to the facilities.
I think it's safe to assume that every rental wetsuit
has been peed in many times. While the neoprene is permeable,
it works by slowing down on how rapidly the water

(05:01):
next to your skin is replaced by cold outside water.
The water in the suit is heated by your body.
The layer of heated water is what keeps you warm.
Joe is correct when he states that the pea is
essentially transferring heat from inside your body to outside. However,
it's heat that would have been pulled from your skin
by the cold water. Regardless, the strategic application of pea

(05:21):
to the suit interior does seem to me to accelerate
the rate at which the water inside the suit becomes tolerable.
All right, Well, that's that's some wonderful additional information there,
not only into just the urine based solutions that are common,
you know among free divers and so forth, but also

(05:41):
just you know, added experience into the awkwardness of oceanic
urination among humans. And but this is a great point too,
that yeah, this is this was my experience as well.
You get off the boat, you're wearing the wet suit,
you're snorkeling, maybe you don't have a wetsuit, you're snorkeling whatever.
Now you are in the midst of it. It's not
really a good time to go back to the boat.

(06:02):
And if you do go back to the boat, there's
not necessarily a bathroom there either, Like this is the
place where you were going to have to pee, and
you just have to make the best of it, all right,
Moving along. We also had some folks write in about
an October episode we did on sirens. I say October.
It's possible that this was one of the late October episodes,
like October thirty third or thirty fifth, once we actually

(06:25):
got into November. A bit concerning the sirens. This one
comes to us from Eric subject Odysseus and the Sirens. Hey, gentlemen,
I am currently enjoying the episode about the sirens. You
mentioned that presumably Odysseus had his ears unplugged out of curiosity,

(06:46):
and I think that's probably true. But I had always
understood that he did it as a sort of cirenometer
for his crew. In short, when I stopped freaking out,
it's safe to unplug your ear holes. If he hadn't,
they might have just failed on and on, unable to
talk to one another until someone finally just became frustrated
and unplugged an ear potentially prematurely and thus fatally. I

(07:09):
assume he picked himself as the cirenometer, if you will,
out of curiosity. Though maybe I overanalyzed the story in
my youth, but the idea is plausible. Thanks as always
for excellent podcast, Eric, Eric, This is a this is
a great point. Yeah, when in reading about this episode
in the Odyssey, Yeah, a lot is said about curiosity

(07:32):
and uh, and Odysseus is curiosity regarding the song of
the sirens, and that does seem to be an important theme.
But I, like you, I think, always grew up. But
even before I was reading the story, I would see
these fabulous illustrations, and you see Odysseus, you know, bound
of the mass straining against them, you know, a very
intentionally I think erotic image that is presented by these

(07:56):
these painters. You know, he is he is his putting
himself in the position to receive like the full temptation
of the sirens. And the only thing that prevents him
from giving into that temptation is not strong willpower, but
just strong not tying abilities and the determination of his crew,

(08:17):
you know, to keep those ears plugged, and you know,
don't don't look over at Odysseus, don't untie him, you know,
wait until the coast is clear, that sort of thing.
But yeah, in looking at it, I always kind of thought, well, Okay,
their ears are plugged, they're continuing to row, and they
just need to keep doing that, stay plugged until Odysseus

(08:40):
stops freaking out. So I think that that makes sense
to me as well. So I don't know, I guess
we can kind of take a little bit of each
of these answers to stitch together the rationale for this plan.
All right, here's another one. This one comes to us
from Scott in response to our Grimoure of Horror episode.
This is the first of these, hopefully we'll do more

(09:02):
in the future, where for Halloween, Joe and I will
each select a work of short written horror fiction and
then discuss it on the show, and we said, hey,
you know, let's get ahead of next year if you
have suggestions right in and so we heard from Scott.

(09:22):
Scott writes and says the following, Hello, all, I recently
enjoyed the grumoure of horror episode and I'm looking forward
to more next Halloween if you can find it. A
short story I read as a middle schooler would be
perfect for next year. This would have been in the
mid nineteen sixties, but I haven't been able to find
any information about it. The gist of the story is
that there is a radio star whose live weekly broadcast

(09:46):
features him going to some haunted location and telling the
listeners about what happens. He is always by himself and restrained,
so he can't leave. He has a portable radio which
transmits to the radio van, which along with his crew,
is some distance away. Essentially, he's helpless to save himself
and there is nobody nearby to aid him. The show's
format is that he tells his listeners the tale of

(10:08):
the haunting, what the ghost or creature that inhabits the
haunted place is supposed to look like and do, how
he fears, strange sounds approaching, and then oh no, there's
the monster. Nothing can save him except the listeners, who,
through their concentrated thoughts, can force the creature to leave
and spare his life. The reality is, of course, that
there is no monster. It's pure radio drama, except for

(10:30):
the show, which is the subject of the story. At
the end of the broadcast, while communicating with his crew,
they tell him that the Knight's listening audience is the
largest ever. He's happy, but ask them to hurry things
up and come get him because he's been hearing some
weird noises. Before they can reach him, he screams into
the radio that the creature is real and that the

(10:51):
room and it is in the room with him. Then silence.
By the time they arrive, they find nothing safe for
chains which held him broken and twisted by some monstrous strength.
It is asserted that the combined belief in the monster
by the large listening audience brought it into existence. As
a youngster of this story scared the but Jesus out
of me. All those people believing in the monster brought

(11:14):
it to life. So what if me thinking about it
causes the same thing? Then I try not to think
about it, which of course only makes me think about
it all the more. This fits in well with what
you guys discussed in the follow up to the second story,
when Robert mentions that there is quote this weird connection
between thought and action and ideas of the supernatural, and

(11:34):
if you put thought and action in motion, like what
does that? What does that do? Of course I knew
that logically there was no way I could will a
monster into existence, but as Joe said, there is a
difference between what you consciously believe and what kinds of
things scare you in theory. Anyway, thanks for the hours
of interesting content you provide during my long commutes, Scott.

(11:56):
All right, well, Scott, this sounds like a really interesting story.
Reminds me of some related works, you know, to get
into similar areas describing toolpose, you know, thought emanations. I
think of some of the there's a particular story, The
Circular Ruins by Borges, you know, I instantly think of
John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness. But as for

(12:17):
this particular story, I do not know what this is.
I looked around a little bit online and I'm pretty
sure I found a poster on Reddit asking about this
same story, but there were no satisfactory answers. So I'll
bump the signal on this request here and maybe it'll
ring a bell with someone out there listening. You can
write in to me and then we'll share it on

(12:38):
a future listener mail episode. But yeah, my mind instantly
turns to a few different nineteen sixties horror fiction mainstays.
I instantly think of somebody like Ray Bradberry. But you know,
a lot of these are authors that were quite prolific,
so it doesn't really narrow it down a lot for
me anyway. So hey, if you know what Scott is
talking about here, write in and we'll go from there.

(13:00):
All right. This one comes to us from Matthew. This
was a response to our Hogs of Hell episode. Matthew says, hey,
I have a fun story about pigs eating a drunk irishman.
I came across it in an episode of the Blind
Boy podcast. Link below includes a link to where you

(13:21):
can find this on Spotify. I imagine this is one
of those shows you you can find this wherever you
get your podcasts. But he continues, the short version is
this In eighteen eighteen, James O'Sullivan, after failing to sell
his two pigs at market, got drunk at the public house,
and then got into his horse drawn cart and passed
out in the back with the pigs. The horse, unguided,

(13:41):
walked the path home. What Miss Sullivan found when the
cart returned was only her husband's boots remaining. The neighbors
were gathered and the priest was called. He suggested that
the man eating pigs be slaughtered and given a Christian perial.
That was the best they could do for poor mister Sullivan.
Then their stomachs. His gravestone, with a depiction of two

(14:03):
pigs still lays in the local graveyard. Thank you for
the consistent and wonderful content. It's all fantastic. Oh and
don't forget about Pigsy Zubaji, the human reincarnated as a
pig demon protagonist from Journey into the West. Matthew. A
good point on Pigsy, Matthew. Yeah, I hadn't really thought
about Pigsy so much, because I think of him not

(14:23):
so much as a as a monster, but as you know,
like you know, an important character of that particular narrative.
But still we're worth mentioning in passing. Certainly, certainly one
of if not the most famous pig human hybrid characters
for sure. As for the story of the drunk Irishman, yeah,

(14:43):
that's quite quite horrific. I had not heard that one before,
and this detail about the gravestone also quite pantalizing. All right,
let's get into a little weird house cinema. We have

(15:04):
one here from Jeff and this is about Spirited Away.
Greetings Joe and Rob. Last year, along with the usual
re releases of Ghibli films, I was able to catch
a showing of the live stage version of Spirited Away
at the local cinema. It was amazing, stunning. It's not
better than the movie and would probably make no sense

(15:24):
whatsoever if you hadn't seen the original. But they did
almost every scene, almost every shot, the close ups, flying, falling, swimming,
hanging off the side of a building, in a moving train,
in a car, almost everything. Despite being one of the
top films that comes to mind if asked which would
be the most insane to try to turn into a
stage performance, the sets were simple but brilliant. They broke

(15:47):
the movie into puzzle pieces and then put it all together.
The acting was great. The original voice actor played Ubaba
and many of the parts were so physical they must
have been dancers or gymnasts. The audience in our movie
theater actually applauded at the end when the camera pulled
back and showed the full orchestra and stage. Not as
emotionally engaging as the film, but a super impressive spectacle.

(16:10):
I highly recommend checking it out if you have the opportunity. Yeah,
I have not seen this myself, but I had heard
that this was excellent if memory serves. There's also a
Totoro stage adaptation that somebody has put together, but again
I haven't seen that either. Anyway, Jeff continues on the
topic of subs versus dubbs. I think the English Spirited

(16:33):
Away dub is quite good, but you haven't actually seen
Keiki's Delivery Service if you haven't seen it with the
original voices Phil Hartman as Kiki's cat's sidekick. This is
in the English version. Of course, the English dub is
not only a completely different character, he changes the meaning
of the film. Hartman's gg is like Kiki's superpower, a

(16:53):
force of positive energy. The original GGI is a quiet
little voice inside Keeeky's head telling her she's not good enough.
Thus the communication breakdown between the two has a totally
different meaning. Kiki is by far my favorite Ghibli film.
It's an instruction manual for leading a rewarding life. I
go see it every summer when they re release it.

(17:15):
It's probably not weird enough for Weird House, but I
very much encourage all your listeners to check it out
if possible. In the original Japanese. Oh, this is an
excellent suggestion. I have never seen Kiki's delivery service in
the original Japanese, but this is one that I watched
Fairmount with my son. This was for a time. This
was his absolute favorite as well. It's such a sweet film,

(17:38):
and yeah, I mean I really like Phil Hartman in it,
so it would be an interesting experience to get into
this other like original version of Gigi, Let's see Jeff
continues here. Also, despite Michael Keaton's great performance in Porco Rosso,
the original Porko is far more charming. Here's a comparison

(17:59):
of an ex change between our hero and a group
of old ladies he hasn't seen in a long time.
American Porko, Are you girls really still alive? Japanese Porko,
The Angels haven't come for you? Yet, I mean, come on,
of course, I'm basing my opinion on the Japanese subtitle
translation on the DVDs, But I have seen the Disney
Voice directors boasting about how hard they work to make

(18:21):
new dialogue that syncs with the animated mouth flaps, which
is the cart leading the horse if I ever heard it.
Thanks for covering Spirited Away. It's always nice to get
a little duckling spirit in our lives. Jeff well excellently, Jeff.
I knew that we had some ghibli fans out They're
out there with some strong opinions on dubbs versus subs.
You know, I've heard some of it before in regard

(18:43):
to certain films. You know, I've certainly heard it in
regards to like the the mytho religious context that is
present in some of these films, and how the English
dub often like takes a more monotheistic approach versus versus
what was originally present in the original untranslated material. So anyway,

(19:05):
thanks for writing in about all of that. Yeah, I
need to I need to cueue up a Miyazaki film
and watch it in the original Japanese. It was probably
gonna be I'm probably gonna turn to one of my favorites.
I'm probably gonna do something like NAUSICAA, but yeah, I'll
come back to that in the future. All right. This
next one comes to us from Iris. This is another
spirited away response. Iris says, Hi Robin Joe, hope you

(19:32):
both are doing very well. I just came from your
weird house cinema episode unspirited Away. It is my ultimate
comfort film, though as a child, I too was traumatized
by the foodstall scene and made my parents promise to
never eat food without paying first. Throughout the years, I
have rewatched the movie in different stages of life and
have gained different perspectives on this film in two aspects,

(19:53):
one the power within a name and two the Kobukicho
the red light district culture, reflection on the bathouse setting,
and a content warning. There are going to be some
mature themes explored in the later paragraph. Okay, so mature
themes warning applied. I've always loved applied linguistics, and it
is an interesting exercise to learn about the character names

(20:15):
of the key characters. Chihiro's name in kanji is Chi
thousand and hero to seek to find which reflects her
character's journey to be constantly seeking a way out, seeking
a way to save her parents, and seeking the truth
of the spirit realm. So when Ubaba takes her name,
she chose to take away the verb in her name
and left her with the numerical character sin also means thousand.

(20:39):
Ubaba is minimizing Chihiro down to a money making servant
and taking away her central motivation of seeking away out.
Haku's real name expands into Junior master of fast winding
Amber River or Niji Hayami Kohaku Nushi. The Haku or
white dragon is derived from Kohaku Amber, which reflects his

(21:02):
spiritual form. When I was younger, I question if it
is really that easy to forget your name when the
new name sounds so similar to the original name. But
the Japanese language is a funny combination of romanticized syllables
that string into meaningful kanji characters. You can see that
by taking a part of one's name, the meaning changes completely.
On a more lighthearted note, Ubaba and twin Zeniba have

(21:26):
an interesting title pair. The former translates roughly to soup
grandma and the later money grandma. When you put the
characters of you and zen together, it makes the word tozin,
which is a synonym to onsen or hot spring bath
very on the nose. It's also interesting that Ubaba and
Zeniba both use titles such as the Grandma of soup

(21:47):
or money throughout the film, as opposed to a more
conventional name. My guess is that by not uncovering their
true name, magical creatures in the spirit realm would not
have any power over them. If you were a fan
of the fantasy genre, you'll know that the law of
name is a common trope among large fantasy works such
as Earthsea and Lord of the Rings. Folklore such as

(22:09):
Rumpelstilskin also explores this magic behind a name and how
you can control the creature if you hold their real name.
The ritual of changing one's name is present and still
practiced in the kabukicho culture in Japan. To Chihiro's journey
in getting a job in the bath house starts with
signing a work contract in a way selling her name
to gain employment. The sequence is a similar journey for

(22:32):
Chio from Memoir of a Geisha, where she was sold
to the geisha house for labor and then abandons her
name to sayuri. Mister Miyazaki himself has made comparisons between
the bath house in Japan's Edo period red light district.
In the book Turning Point nineteen ninety seven through two
thousand and eight, Chihiro is employed as a bath girl

(22:54):
or Yunah, who cleans after customers. In the Edo period,
Yunah's services offered woding include eating, drinking, playing games, and
in some private cases, prostitution. You can also see this
connection to Ubaba's title, which is a form of madam.
She determines which yuna works for which customer. Even though
there are a ton of elements in the film that

(23:14):
reflect the kubuki cho culture of Japan, I have to
applaud that mister Miyazaki chose to focus on the genuine
relationship between Shihiro, rin Haiku and Kamaji that was forged
in the most brutal workplace. Lastly, going back to the
language of the film, the full Japanese title of the
film is send to Chichiro no Kama Kanushi, which consists

(23:36):
of the two names of our main heroine and Kama Kakushi.
The word is typically translated to the disappearance, but the
Kanji form of The word literally means hidden by the gods.
The specific usage of this word is usually reserved for
Japanese children who disappear without a trace. There are a
lot of Japanese myths and traditional Shinto tales that address

(23:57):
the disappearance of women or children, which are usually summarized
to be the doing by gods or spirits who lures
them into the ghost realm. I would love to hear
you guys's deep dive on some famous Kama Cohee cases
of Japan, perhaps the future episode. Thanks again for choosing
such a classic film for this episode of Weird House Cinema.

(24:18):
I'm forever blown away by your breadth and depth of
topics and the endless passion I hear for the past
six years. Thanks for being the show that I look
forward to catch up on the most best. Iris Well, Iris,
thanks for writing in with all of that some excellent
insight into the into the world, the real world behind

(24:38):
Spirited Away, and some of the thoughts and ideas that
it went into it. I hope I was able to
do an okay job at least with some of those
those words. My apologies if I am any mispronunciations of
the Japanese there that I inevitably inflicted. But that's yeah,
that's that's absolutely fascinating, and I could see us coming
back and doing episodes related to these topics in the future.

(25:00):
We're always fascinated different folk beliefs and urban legends and
so forth in varying cultures, and you know, we come
back time and time again to Japanese culture as well.
All Right, this next one comes to us from Skylar,

(25:22):
and I really love the title on this particular email.
It is local libraries can be your video drome. Skyler is,
of course referring to Atlanta's own Video Drome video rental store.
This is a wonderful place where I rent a lot
of the discs that I watch for Weird House cinema,
and Skyler makes a great point here that, yeah, if

(25:43):
you don't have a videodrome in your city or something
like video Drome, you might have a library that can
writ me some discs. She writes, Hey, I always enjoy
your weird House selection, but there is not a video
rental store near me, so I have to stream it
if available. I use my local library for books, but
checked out the movie section, and because of the regional
library system, I can request books for numerous libraries. Same

(26:07):
goes with movies. Many of the movies you've highlighted on
the podcast are available through the library system. Just another
option for watching awesome, weird house movies on DVD with
cool bonus features and a great opportunity to support your
local library. Also, I was listening to Arnold Schwarzenager's memoir
and he said that he was signed on to be
in the im Legend film that starred Will Smith, but

(26:30):
because Arnold had recently had heart surgery, the cost to
ensure him was enormous. I wish that had happened, because
I have a hard time imagining him in the role.
Thanks for all that you do, Skyler, Well, great points, Skyler. Yeah,
don't forget the excellent resources afforded to you by your
local library. You know I don't. It's been a while.

(26:50):
It's been a long time since I've rented any movies
to the library, but I do continue to use the
library local library for books and such, and I do
have friends who more religiously use the library as their
means of getting on the waiting list for various films.
So it's an excellent idea. I'm glad you brought it up.
I need to touch on that more when we're bringing
up ways to watch these various films. As for Arnold

(27:13):
and will Smith, yeah, obviously I've loved both of them
in different projects. Though I'm hard pressed to imagine a
version of two thousand and sevens I am legend that
I would personally be fond of. But then again, I
know a lot of people like this film. Ebert gave
it like three out of four stars, so maybe I
need to revisit it. I don't know. Maybe time has
been kind to it, and I'm just remembering the CGI

(27:35):
Monsters and I don't know. It didn't hit. It didn't
land properly for me back then, but maybe if I
re experienced it would be different. All right. I haven't
completely depleted the mail bag here, but there are a
couple here that I wanted to save because I knew
that Joe would really want to get into them. So
I want to upset a few aside, and we'll come

(27:56):
back to them later on. In all likelihood, we'll do
another list or mail towards the end of December or
the beginning of January. Obviously, there's going to be a
lot of disruption and so forth due to the holidays.
But let's see as I begin to close this out.
You know, I said at the top of the episode
that I traveled with my family to Wales last week.

(28:16):
So perhaps some of you are wondering, if you've listened
to me long enough, well, what films did I watch
on the plane? Because watching movies on a plane, along
with listening to Steve Roach albums and napping, this is
the main way way I cope with flights. I don't
really like flying, no matter what my seating situation happens
to be. So I ended up exerting control where I
can exert control, download a bunch of movies, and then

(28:39):
pick out ones mid flight to watch. So yeah, I'll
go ahead and share this with anyone who's curious. And
if you're not curious, you know, I guess just you know,
you can close up the episode. But I'm just going
to talk about movies. Though watched on the plane here
for a minute or two. So I watched both nineteen
eighties Showgun Assassin and nineteen seventy two's Lone Wolf and
Cub sort of Vengeance. I watched these for an upcoming

(28:59):
weird how Cinema episode we're going to do on Showgun Assassin.
Showgun Assassin is a Western picture that takes the first
two Lone Wolf and Cub movies and cuts them into
one picture with a new soundtrack and narration. It is
a grindhouse classic. It's tremendous fun. I had a great
time watching it on the plane and then watching the

(29:21):
first of the two movies that went into it, and
I think I'm going to watch that second one as well.
Before Joe and I discussed Showgun Assassin. I love watching
a film where I can just really zone out on
the colors, and that's why another film that I watched
this was a rewatch for me. I hadn't seen it
in a while, perhaps since it came out, but I
watched twenty sixteen's The Love Witch. Just a perfect film

(29:44):
that knows exactly what it wants to accomplish and does
so with such loving technicolor style. Though this is one
that as I'm watching it, you know there are, of
course here on a plane, other people can see what
you're watching, and sometimes I feel like I need to
like turn around and explain to them that I'm watching
a very art film with some very serious minded ideas
behind it. But yeah, love The Love Witch. This is

(30:07):
one that I could see. I could see an episode
of Weird House Cinema devoted to this episode. I know
Joe's really fond of it. I think Annie Reese is
a big fan of this film as well, if I'm
remembering correctly, so, I don't know, one way or another
might come back to The Love Witch. I also rewatched
twenty seventeen's Alien Covenant, which I had previously rewatched on
a long flight just earlier this year. Some people don't

(30:30):
like this film, but this one remains one of my
personal favorites. I realize that no one understands the lonely
perfection of my dreams, but hey, this time around, I
really focused on Billy Crudup's performance here. Such a terrific actor,
even if he's in something that I'm not really you know,
super into. You know, there's no speculative element, it's not weird.

(30:51):
It's like, he's still such a captivating performer. And I
think part of my attraction to his acting is that
I got to see him on stage back in I
think this was two thousand and five in New York.
He was in a production of The Pillow Man opposite
Jeff Goldblum. This is one where it just kind of
grab tickets last minute, you know what can we see

(31:12):
tonight in the Big City. We got tickets to see
The Pillow Man and it was really captivating. I had
never heard of Billy before, but he was tremendous in that,
and I think he's just really great in anything I
see him in, and he's great. An Alien Covenant, a
great cast all around there. And then finally, I'll mention
a film that has come up a lot on Weird

(31:32):
House Cinema and I wasn't sure if it would be
like a Weird House Cinema selection. I was like, I
need to watch it in full by myself before I
make up my mind. I sat down and watched. Well,
of course it was setting down iceeded for like ten hours,
but I watched The Eyes of Laura Mars from nineteen
seventy eight. Some of you had written in about this
one in the past. I think, so this is a

(31:54):
film that has a great cast based on a spec
script from John Carpenter, really cool seventies like late seventies
New York disco feel. It's essentially a jallo film. You know,
it's some sort of strange murders going on. Highest high
fashion photographer is getting glimpses, psychic glimpses of the murders.

(32:16):
You know, all the pieces seem tremendous, but it doesn't
quite come together the way you want it to. So
I don't think it's right for weird House. But it
is an interesting film curio. You know, you're looking at
a film that it doesn't quite land, but man, all
the pieces are there. It's weird that it doesn't. But
I don't know. I'm sure it has its fans. If
you're a fan of the Eyes of Laura Mars right in,

(32:38):
well we can chat about it certainly has some great
pieces to it and some great little performances sprinkled throughout.
All Right, Well, if anyone's still with me here, I'm
gonna go ahead and close out this rare solo Robert
Lamb episode of Listener Mail. Let's see what kind of

(32:58):
notes do I need to share here as we close out?
And I guess just the regular stuff that's stuff to
blow your mind. Is primarily a science and culture podcast,
with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays
we set aside most serious concerns and we just talk
about a weird film on Weird House Cinema on Wednesdays,
a little short form episode, sometimes a monster. I think

(33:18):
there's a particular Welsh monster. I'm going to come back
to either either this week or following week. We'll see
how it all lands. And if you're on Instagram, look
us up. We're stb ym podcast. Great way to follow us.
What else let's see, Oh, wherever you get the podcast,
make sure you're subscribed, make sure you're getting downloads, and
if you haven't already, you know, give us a nice rating.

(33:41):
We always forget to beg for stars and ask for
ratings and all, and it's easy to not put our
you know, do not wrap our minds around all of
that and just focus on the content and the listeners.
But you know, it does help if there are nice
reviews for the show, you know, as is often the case,
you know, the folks who chime in with reviews are
often those that that really don't like us or really

(34:03):
like us, you know, you get those extremes of opinion,
and so you know, sometimes I think it's a good
idea to just remind everyone in the middle. You know, hey,
why don't you pop on and you know, go ahead
and bump those stars up, stars up to five. You know,
I realize you probably are thinking more like the four arrange,
but go ahead and give it a five. Five helps more.
Let's see anything else? Oh yeah, if you want to

(34:24):
follow the Weird House Cinema selections, we're on a letterbox.
We're as weird House. That's our user name. Follow us
there and I believe that's pretty much it. We're gonna
go ahead and close the episode out. But thanks us
always to the excellent JJ Possway for producing the show,
stishing everything together, making it sound as good as it does.

(34:44):
And if you would like to reach out to any
of us here at stuff to Blow Your Mind, if
you would like to get that link to the discord server,
or just share ideas for the future, ideas and thoughts
on past episodes, Weird House Cinema, you name it, ride
in to us at contact at stuffd Blow your Mind
dot com.

Speaker 1 (35:10):
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