February 25, 2025 • 40 mins
Once more, it's time for a dose of Stuff to Blow Your Mind and Weirdhouse Cinema listener mail...
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind listener mail.
This is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
And this is Joe McCormick. And hey everybody, we are
back after being out for a week. You know, we
have an auspicious beginning here because, as our producer JJ
just let us know, we began this recording session at
the exact moment that Agent Dale Cooper enters Twin Peaks
at the beginning of the series. This is February twenty fourth,
eleven thirty am. So I don't know what to make
(00:36):
of that, but maybe off to get some pie today.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
All right, well, let's go ahead and jump into some
listener mail here. We've got some really good ones, a
number of listener mail pieces devoted to our episodes on
Cotton Candy. But first, this one comes to us from
Troy regarding our episode on Io. This is, of course,
the one of the moons of Jupiter that we revisited
(01:01):
in full on the podcast. Troy writes, Hi, Joe, Robert,
and JJ, I recently listened to your podcast about Io
having volcanic eruptions strong enough to reach exit velocity. Then
you mentioned several ideas related to achieving exit velocity from Earth,
but did not mention Verne's book Jules vern Of course,
(01:24):
I am probably not the only one, but this reminded
me of the classic book by Jules vern where some
gun club guys decided to shoot a cannon ball at
the Moon. Later in the story, the cannon ball is
scrapped for a more capsule shape so the ball won't spin.
Somebody proposes to make the ball. Essentially a ship from
the Earth to the Moon eighteen sixty five and its sequel,
(01:46):
Around the Moon eighteen seventy by Jules vern Our pioneering
works of science fiction and depict an ambitious attempt to
send men to the Moon using a massive cannon. The
story follows the Baltimore based Gun Club, a group of
artillery enthusiasts led by President MP Barbicane. After the end
of the American Civil War, the club seeks a new
(02:07):
challenge and decides to construct an enormous cannon to launch
a projectile to the Moon. Eventually, Barbicane, Arden and Barbicane's
rival turned ally, Captain Nickel, decide to travel inside the
projectile themselves. In Around the Moon the sequel, the three
passengers experience weightlessness, observe Earth and the Moon from space,
and face the danger of being trapped in orbit. A
(02:29):
near miss with the Moon results in their capsule falling
back to Earth, where they safely land in the ocean.
Right Troy goes on to discuss some of the technology
used in this science fiction book. The massive cannon named
the Columbiad, is nine hundred feet two hundred and seventy
four meters long and is built in a deep pit
dug into the ground in Tampa, Florida. It is designed
(02:51):
to fire an enormous hollow aluminum shell the spacecraft carrying
the three men. To reach the Moon, the projectile needs
to achieve an escape velocity of l two hundred meters
per second approximately twenty five thousand miles per hour. Burne's
calculations were impressively close to modern physics, though the concept
of using a canon to achieve such speeds would be
lethal due to the extreme acceleration. I thought the book
(03:14):
had great character development and attention to detail. They even
had a type of water mattress designed to push the
water out of vents during the initial launch to dampen
the g forces give up the great work. Troy. Ps
one more thing. I also thought it was impressive how
they decided to point the canon vertically at the moon,
but had to bury the whole cannon to prevent the
(03:35):
canon from exploding. One of the main characters had body
parts missing due to one of his canons accidentally exploding,
so they decided to bury the canon for extra strength.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Oh thank you, Troy. Yeah, interesting contribution. So I never
read this novel. I read several other things by Jules
Vern when I was younger, and I had a copy
of this book, And now I'm ashamed to say that
I was discouraged from ever reading it because I was
sort of glancing through it and thinking, I don't think
(04:06):
they're going to see any aliens in this. This feels
like an alien's free space adventure book, and I'm just
not interested in that. Looking back on that now, I
think that was a narrow minded way to approach science fiction,
But I don't know that's how I was then.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah, I think maybe I've only ever read twenty thousand
Leagues under the Sea, though I don't remember much about
the experience. My kid recently had to read it for school,
and I don't think they enjoyed the experience. But then again,
such as the case sometimes when you're having to read
things for school.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
I remember liking twenty thousand Leagues and I read Journey
to the Center of the Earth and I liked that.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Yeah. I know. I've seen multiple film versions of various
Vern novels, and a number of those are a lot
of fun. I don't think we've covered one on Weird
House Cinema though, have we? Have we covered a Vern's
a direct Vern's adaptation?
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Well, we did Invention for Destruction, which I think it
was a loose adaptation of a different not of a
novel by Jules Vern. I forget the name of it. Sorry,
I just had to look it up. The Vern novel
that was based on was called Facing the Flag alternately
for the Flag from eighteen ninety six.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Yeah. Yeah, And the film that we watched was a
nineteen fifty eight black and white science fiction adventure film, yeah,
which was wonderful. Yes, I remember it as being very
visually pleasing.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
But to your point, yeah, there are some great movie
adaptations of Vern. I mean, the twenty thousand Leagues with
James Mason is how do you beat that? It's James Mason.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
All right, but all this has just been a preface
to Cotton Candy Joe dig into the Cotton Candy Force.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Oh all right, let's see. Well here, I'm going to
start with this message you pulled in from discord from
listener Eric. Eric says, I'm usually over in the Weird
House channels, but I recently listened to the Cotton Candy
two parter. I was especially drawn to these episodes because
(06:01):
I used to work at a movie theater with a
cotton candy machine, and not to toot my own horn,
but I got pretty skilled at spinning some of the biggest,
fluffiest bags of cotton candy you've ever seen. One thing
I don't think was touched on, though it's probably obvious,
is just how sticky the process is. Most cotton candy
(06:21):
sessions left me covered in tiny sugar crystals embedded in
my hair and eyelashes, to the point where I felt
the need to wash my face afterwards. But it gets worse.
Sometimes after running around cleaning theaters, I'd be sweaty and
we'd need to whip up a fresh batch. Oh, the
sugar would stick to my face and even my eyelids.
(06:45):
Just imagine trying to blink with sticky eyelids. Despite all that,
making cotton candy was ridiculously fun and none of it
stopped me from becoming the resident cotton candy master at
my theater. Anyway. Great episodes, awesome job guys. Thank you Eric.
That is so gross. Just thinking about that makes my
skin crawl, and so I have no choice but to
(07:07):
respect your courage.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Yeah, it shockingly close to killer clowns from outer space
territory with that story.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Yeah, makes you think they could get you cocooned pretty easy. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
I did not have any cotton candy over the break,
but I went with my family and some friends to
San Diego Zoo, which is a pretty amazing zoo. A
lot of cotton candy there. Having done these episodes about
cotton candy, I was just seeing it everywhere in ways
that I normally maybe don't pay that much attention to it.
(07:39):
But I did feel a certain residual stickiness at times.
When I watched a child consuming a big cone of
the stuff, you can almost like feel the sugar in
the air. Occasionally there was some discarded on the ground,
and there was actually at least one like automated cotton
candy machine. I didn't really spend much time with it
(07:59):
because I want to attract any of the children and
our party over to it. But I was tempted at
that point. I was like, if this, if no one
was around, I might put some money in this machine
and see what happens.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Sneak away for stealth adult cotton candy.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Yeah, all right, This next one comes to us from Phoenix.
Phoenix says, good morning. I enjoyed the Invention podcast so
much and was sad to see it go, So I'm
always thrilled when you guys dive back into these topics. Now,
what is Phoenix talking about here? Well, for a short while,
(08:35):
Joe and I had a separate podcast titled Invention. You
can still find that podcast feed out there, and we
did I don't remember how many episodes, each one tied
to an Invention. Now, at some point or another, I
think all those episodes were republished in the Stuff to
Blow your Mind podcast feed, and we've continued on with
the spirit of those episodes, occasionally doing some sort of
(08:57):
an Invention themed episode, and we usually work the world
Invention into the title, just to make it clear that's right.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
So while we no longer produce Invention as a separate
show on its own feed on a set schedule it
lives on, we will still keep doing these episodes from
time to time.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Yeah, I mean go check them out. The show does
get listened, so I stand by those episodes. There were
a lot of fun anyway, Phoenix continues, I just wanted
to share a little something. As a teenager, I worked
at an amusement park and occasionally I had to make
the cotton candy. As you guys stated, it has a
very short shelf life. Part of this is because it
(09:34):
absorbs the moisture in the air. But another attractive feature
of cotton candy is how light an aira it is,
and that does not last very long because it starts
to collapse and condense under its own weight within a
matter of hours, and so by the second half of
the day, any pre made cotton candy was pretty second
rate to the fresh stuff. We actually wouldn't make very
much of it, and someone would make new bags every
(09:55):
few hours to try and keep it nice and fresh
for the patrons. Thanks again for all ways sharing such
amazing and wonderful topics, Phoenix.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
I wonder if there is a selection process in play,
like the cotton candy vendor sees a person approaching and decides,
does this person are they gonna be the type who
complains if they don't get the good stuff? Or is
this a kid who's not going to know the difference,
Like you can give them the old collapsing cotton candy
and it's just just fine.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Yeah, Or maybe do they need a little enticing Do
they need to see someone making cotton candy to sort
of cinch the cell to the child and or the
parents who have to produce the money that sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Can you imagine though, the parent who tries to bargain
with you, So the parents like, no, no, I'm not
paying for that old cotton candy, I need fresh stuff
for my kid.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Yeah, oh, I can imagine that. I can also imagine
the reverse. You're like, don't give me that fresh stuff.
I want the old stuff. Give it to me a discount.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Oh well, speaking of that, that will tie into our
next message. Are you ready for me to read this
one from Sheldean.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Let's do.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Okay? Sheldyan says, Hi, Rob, Joe, and JJ, it's such
a weird coincidence that you did the two episodes on
cotton candy because it's been on my mind recently. I
loved it as a kid, but as an almost fifty
year old, it's just too sweet now. So I'm South
African and we call it candy floss there. My recollection
is that as a child, we'd have to go to
(11:23):
the beach to get candy floss. There were usually vendors
selling various types of foods, and if we wanted fresh floss,
that was the place to go. But we could also
usually get it at markets, fairs or fetes. Another interesting
variance is we'd get it in a plastic bag. I've
never had candyfloss on a stick or holder of any type.
(11:44):
Even when my kids were young, that was the way
of it, but by the time they came along early
two thousands, we could also buy candy floss at the
shops in small airtight buckets. In Afrikaans, it's got a
great name spook a sim or maybe a spoke a sim,
which means ghost breath, keep up the great work regards Sheldane.
(12:06):
And then here's the ps that ties into what you
were saying, rob Ps. I forgot to add having candy
floss in a plastic bag also helped create the way
I like to eat it. You'd have to unknot the bag,
which is always puffed full of air, and then I'd
squash the floss flat into a sugary piece of crunchy board.
The best way to eat.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
It, I mean, fair enough, that's just not a wrong
way to eat cotton.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
I say, with affection, what is wrong with you?
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Well? I will say that had I grown up being
exposed to cotton candy as ghost breath candy, I would
have probably had it a bit more, and maybe it
would have a warmer place in my heart. All right,
let's see what else do we have from the cotton
candy archives here. This one comes to us from Pat.
(13:01):
Pat says, I very much enjoyed your episodes on cotton candy. However,
I truly dislike cotton candy itself. I am not one
to eat many sweets. In fact, after the abundance of
candy from Halloween and Easter, I give a lot of
it to my sister, who consumed it quite quickly. I
took days to eat all of mine. Mom sometimes asked
if I was taking so long just to torture my sister,
(13:22):
and it did indeed torture her. As much as I
dislike cotton candy, I do like a pinch of maple
cotton candy. Living in the Northeast, we are blessed with
sugar maple trees, and someone must have decided to use
maple sugar to make cotton candy. It is amazing. One
pinch is enough so I can avoid a sugar crash,
(13:42):
but I'm always tempted to eat more. I'm glad I
found your podcast and the fantastic variety of subjects you cover.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Oh thanks so much, Pat, You know you've got me interested.
I am not usually very into the idea of eating
cotton candy, but maple flavored I would give that.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Ah, I would give it. I would give it a pinch,
much like this. I probably have a pinch of it,
and then I don't know, hold the rest under a
water foucet or something to destroy the evidence. But yeah,
that does sound interesting. Oh, by the way, Pat also
had a question about where to find the old Invention episodes.
(14:20):
You should still be able to find that podcast feed
out there wherever you get your podcasts, just look for
Invention or Invention podcast. Our names are going to be
mentioned in the about data. But I just did a
quick internet search and it seemed to come up pretty
easily on my end, So just turn around you should
(14:40):
be able to find it. If you're having trouble, email
us and we'll send you a link.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Side note, You can, of course listen however you want,
but if you just want to listen in a way
that helps us out the most, you might want to
listen if we've rerun the episode, listen to the one
on the stuff to blow your mind. Feed that gives
us another little ping.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, all right, Joe, have we had enough
cotton candy for the day?
Speaker 3 (15:10):
I think we have. Let's see, how about we do
some messages in response to our series on pretend play.
I'm gonna read this one from Sauna. Saana says hello
from Sweden. I've been listening to you guys for years
now and the pretend Play episodes were really interesting. I
work as a dentist in northern Sweden and I use
pretend play every week. The child patients, mostly between the
(15:34):
ages of four to seven, who have to go through
a filling of a tooth, can be a bit nervous
or scared by creating a story or a play around
the treatment, the whole thing usually goes more smoothly. The
drill becomes the shower, the cavity is the house of
the tooth bacteria or tooth trolls in Swedish what and
(15:56):
the filling material is the door to prevent new tooth
trolls going back into the tooth. The young children can
become really invested in the stories and it makes the
experience a bit more fun. Best regards Sauna, oh.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Man, tooth trolls, ghost Breath, There's so many wonders here
that I missed out on, while not missing out on
the things that they're not the awful things that bear the.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Name the House of the tooth Bacteria one of the
lesser known Christopher Lee films.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Yeah, but this is.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Delightful to think about, and it makes me wonder how
like you couldn't do this with adults because they would
be like, why are you playing this game and talking
about tooth trolls. I'm an adult. You know, people would
probably feel disrespected by trying to do this with them.
But I feel like if adults could be game for
this kind of thing, it might actually help.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Yeah, most adults are probably not going to react fondly too.
You've got tooth trolls, so you have to sugarcoat it.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Or you may not sugarcoat it, Like you can't play
the pretend game with adults. But even if it might
actually help with adults, if they were a game for it.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
I think they. I think most adults would would and
would be in our game for a different sort of
sugar coating, you know. I feel like, you know, sometimes
it's just it's freshened up clinical language and so forth,
And I mean it's probably gonna vary worldview to worldview.
But yeah, I think I think you still have to
sugarcoat things for adults in these situations. It's just a
(17:32):
different form of sugarcoating, and maybe it's a little less
overtly fun. But I think you should maybe have the
option to sign on for pretend play. Why not? All right?
This one comes to us from Matt. Matt says, Hey, guys,
I thought I might drop you a line about something
I remember from my early childhood with regard to imaginative play.
(17:54):
There's one experience in particular that stands out in my mind.
I grew up in a highly religious family that had
the rule that we could not play outside on Sunday
to keep the Sabbath day holy and all that. On
the day in question, I snuck outside to do just that,
play outside with the other neighborhood kids. They were pretending
they were in a gang, and we were carrying around
(18:14):
sticks with grape fruits stuck to the end that they
called their weapons. This was in Florida, by the way,
so such fruit trees were not hard to come by.
Now the part I want to mention about this. At
my young age, I was uncertain whether they were pretending
or if they actually believed they were a threatening cohort
with these deadly fruits on sticks. Additional relevant information, I
(18:36):
believe that I might have some level of autism, though
no diagnosis was ever attempted due to my parents' religious
and political beliefs, and I am unsure if that uncertainty
is a sign of that or if it is a
common experience as we learned to model the minds and
behaviors of others. But in any case, I thought it
might be an interesting point of discussion for you guys.
Whatever your thoughts, I'd be interested to hear them this
(18:58):
regarding how to evaluate the gang of children whether they
were pretending to be in a gang or actually in
a gang.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
They thought they were actually in a gang.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Yeah, yeah, I guess it's it's kind of difficult right
to gauge that because I'm just thinking, like the mindset
of the kids who are pretending to be in a gang,
At what point does that become being in a gang?
You know, even if you set out to pretend. Like
I remember part of my childhood, this would have been
in a few years that I lived in Canada, there
(19:32):
were kids that had these sticks with nails through them,
so it was like very mad Max and I guess
this was around the time of like road War or something,
but they were they were sticks with nails through them,
Like you could have messed somebody up with these, but
they were toys and the kids kind of acted like
they were in some sort of a post apocalyptic gang.
(19:53):
But since they had sticks with nails through them, who's
to say they were not.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
Yeah, that race is a really good point. There. There
were different types of sort of pretend architecture for pretend
to play. So one is where the as if world
is changing objective facts about reality. The banana is really
objectively not a phone, but you can pretend it is.
But there are other types of pretend play where what
(20:18):
you're pretending about our mind states and intentions. So like
play fighting, the pretense there is like we're acting as
if we were really fighting, but we're not really fighting,
and all it would take for that to become really
fighting is a change in the minds and intentions of
(20:38):
the people playing, you know, so you're not like pretending
about some objective external fact in the world. You're just
pretending about what we're doing. And a gang is kind
of like that, isn't it. Yeah, Yeah, And to extend
from that point, I think with that second type of pretend,
where you're not pretending about objective facts in the world,
(20:59):
but you're pretending about intentions, it's easier to blur the
line between are we between are we just suspending disbelief
for the purpose of play, or do we really believe this?
It can kind of you can kind of get to
the point where you are intentionally not looking at that line.
You're like not, You're willing yourself not to notice whether
(21:21):
you are doing one or the other, at least for
the moment, and then something might an event might kind
of force you to acknowledge the line again and say, no,
this is really what we're doing. But I think a
lot of play as children, like when you get into
a kind of task, like, oh, we're trying to accomplish that,
you know. A listener wrote in I think at one
(21:41):
point about like collecting certain cicada shells to like get
a great bounty of money or something. You know, it's
like there's an objective fact about the world, like whether
you could actually get the money, but you're not at
that point yet whether you have to test whether that's true.
So instead you're just at the tensions point, are we
actually harvesting these cicada exoskeletons in order to get millions
(22:06):
of dollars? And you can kind just not look at
the fact of whether you really believe you're going to
get the money or not. You're just in the task
and you're fully absorbed.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. Now Matt continues here,
Matt says, side note on a topic you covered in
the same episodes. When I was little, I wanted to
an imaginary friend so bad, but I didn't know how
to make that happen. In a way I imagined it.
I thought such a friend would have their own autonomous
mind and personality. But every time I tried to conjure one,
(22:37):
I was well aware that I was the one actively
choosing the choices of anyone I imagined. I had a
very strong imagination, but there definitely were no illusions or
confusion about the separation between what was real and what
I was imagining, and I was sad about that. Anyways,
loved the show and look forward to continuing to hear
more of it as time moves forward. Thanks Matt. I
(22:59):
love this point Matt raises about like wanting an imaginary friend,
because you know, I can't relate to that, to that specifically,
but I think you know, at different points in life
you sometimes encounter like different models of this, like people
who have on one level or another claimed or proclaimed
(23:24):
to have connection to the unseen world, you know, be
it like in a religious experience or you know, some
sort of like paranormal experience. However, it's you know, framed
in a particular worldview or belief system. And if you
want that thing and you believe that it is accessible
at least on some level, and then you know pine
(23:46):
for it, you know, you can feel left out for
not having it. Why like why have I not seen
the lights in the sky, Why have I not heard
like the voice of God in my head? And so forth?
And of course there are a million different answers for
why that is going to be the case, and they
have to do with everything from the sorts of stories
were told and how they relate it to objective reality,
(24:09):
also to just the different mental experiences that people have
across different mind states.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Yeah, that's all true. I also wonder about I don't know, Matt,
I don't know if you have an opinion on whether
this is the case or not, But I wonder if
when you're saying you're sad about your inability to have
an imaginary friend that had thoughts and actions that seemed
to come from outside yourself, were you said just simply
(24:38):
because like that couldn't happen, that your imaginary friend all
came from you and you were conscious of that, or
were you said in a relative sense because you thought
maybe other kids had had more of a feeling that
their imaginary friend's actions came from outside theirselves, and that like,
relative to their experience, you couldn't have the same experience.
(25:00):
H Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (25:02):
Yeah, in which case, I guess that also raises the
question like were the other kids actually able to feel
like their imaginary friends were coming from outside them or
is that just how it looked from the outside. Actually,
on the subject of pretend play feeling real to kids,
like the question of whether you know you're pretending or not,
or whether you remember in the moment that you're pretending,
(25:24):
we also got this message from Joy Joy, says Dear
Robert and Joe. The discussion on how much children believe
the things they pretend brought to mind an instance of
ongoing pretend play. Two of my friends and I devised
during recesses in elementary school. One day, we found the
(25:46):
name Penny written on a piece of litter. We decided
Penny was a ghost who haunted the school. Penny was good,
but there was another ghost who was evil. For many months,
we spent our recesses trying to solve the mystery of
the haunting, which included occasional cases of pretend possession. Looking
(26:06):
back on that pretend play a couple of years later,
it struck me that we never paused to consider the
question of if the ghosts were real or just a
collaborative story. We were making up our searches, and any
incidents of possession would end as soon as the school
bell rang to call us back from recess. And when
one of my friends accidentally broke something of mine, a
(26:28):
purple ribbon that I carried around and pretended was a
dragon in unrelated pretend play, broke that while pretending to
be possessed, I definitely blamed her and not the ghost.
So on some level we must have known it wasn't real,
but we pretended that we thought it was, even to
ourselves best regards. Joy, Well thanks Joy. Yeah, like we
(26:52):
were saying, that connects to what we were just talking about,
and it makes me think that they're actually like multiple
levels of the suspetn of disbelief. So you can engage
in sort of first order suspension of disbelief, where you
are just you enter a mind state where you can
participate in a pretend game or in a work of
fiction without constantly being interrupted by the thought that this
(27:16):
is not real. You can just sort of take it
as is in the moment, and that in a way
involves a second order suspension of disbelief, which is willing
yourself not to ask the question of or not to
examine the issue of whether you are suspending your disbelief
(27:36):
about the game or the story. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, it gets really complicated really
quickly when we get into contemplations of like the creative
process and the gameness as you say, of all of this.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
Yeah, so we can be game for pretend while at
the same time, like if there is something that forced
us to exit that temporary state of gameness, we can
recall what's real and what's not, so it's not actually
a confusion, a confusion in a permanent sense about what's
real and what's not. But we get into these mind
(28:13):
states where we like, we don't want anything to uh,
to break the break the illusion, to force us to
consider whether we do really believe what we're doing or
what we're saying at the moment. We want to we
want to like not have to examine that question for
the time being.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Yeah. It reminds me of some of the examples we
talked about, UH, audience members cheering on a like a
pro wrestling performance, you know, yeah, where yeah, you don't
want to constantly come in and out of the willing
suspension disbelief. You want to you know, keep that going
for a little bit. It's going to be a massive
bummer if you have to keep coming in and out
of it.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
Right, Yeah, so you like, you know it's not real,
but it's also annoying to you if somebody, if like you,
are reminded that it's not real.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Yeah, all right, let's go ahead and move on to
some weird house cinema listener mail here. This first one
I'm going to read. This one comes to us from Carrie.
(29:18):
Carrie writes Deer Robin Joe. Now that you've run the
thing from another world twice, unstuffed, blow your mind. I
believe one of those is where rerun you need to cover.
My other favorite sci fi monster movie nineteen fifty four's Them,
featuring giant radiation induced mutant ants running them up. It
has a good plot and work by some accomplished actors
(29:39):
James Whitmore, Edmund Gwyn, James Arnest a year before he
began his twenty year stint as Marshall Matt Dillon in
TV's gun Smoke, and small roles by Fess Parker, dub Taylor,
and an up and coming young actor named Leonard Nimoy.
For the time, most of the special effects are pretty
good too. If you haven't seen it, you should if
you've avoided doing so because of comments you've seen or
(30:01):
discounting it as schlock. Remember that kept you from watching
The Thing from Another World and you were glad you
finally did. Anyway, Please put it on your list and
keep up the good work.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
Care Oh well, thank you, Kerry. Recommendation noted, and yes,
them has been on my list for a long time.
I know it's one of the peaks sort of atomic
age giant bug movies, which is fun. I've seen a
lot of the lesser ones, but I've never seen like
one of the main ones, which is this film. But
I was a little confused by your last comment about
avoiding it because it might be seen as schlock. Have
(30:33):
we ever expressed an unwillingness to watch schlock? That seems
quite out of character. This must be based on something
we said, or maybe I said, but I don't remember
what that would be.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
I think what he's referring to here is that, in
talking about the original The Thing from Another World, I
believe I commented that I had always seen stills from
it and kind of discounted the picture because the monster
looked goofy, whereas if you if you experience the monster
within the context of the film, it's actually quite terrifying
(31:07):
and there's a great you know, there's great suspense in
that film. So I think that is what Carrie is
referring to.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
That makes sense, and that's squares with my memory. Okay, well, yes,
we but we're not avoiding schlock. I guarantee you, Carrie,
I think you, if you've listened to the show enough,
we will engage with schlock. We go there.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Yeah, and I totally come back to them. I believe
I saw them or most of them on like a
daytime horror host scenario. This would have been the one
on like TBS that Grandma Monster hosted back in the day.
I distinctly remember watching at least part of this movie
on TV.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
Al Lewis, Yeah, yeah, yeah, all right. This next message
about Weird House is from John. Subject line magic music
cue in the Brainiac movie.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Hmm.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
This is something we asked about in the episode for
people to write in, and John answers a question we had.
John says, Hi, guys, I'm John from Salt Lake, long
longtime listener, occasional writer. I write music for movies, mostly
small independent films. In this week's Weird House Cinema Show,
(32:19):
you were talking about The Brainiac. At one point in
the movie, you mentioned a musical cue that sounds magical
or indicates that something magical has just happened, and asked
if it was a named thing. So, yeah, refresher, this
happened in the moment in The Brainiac where the count
is getting burned at the stake, but he looks up
(32:40):
and he sees a comet in the sky, and that
comet ends up being related to the brainy acts ability
to return hundreds of years later as this brain eating creature.
Unclear exactly whether the premise is fully magical or science fiction,
but it used this music cue on like a marimba
or a harp that was familiar to both of us.
(33:02):
It's like the thing that always triggers in a movie
or an old TV show when something magical or dream
like is happening, doulululu, you know. And we were asking,
is there a name for that musical cliche? So this
is what John is answering. John says, yes, there is
a named thing here. It's called the whole tone scale.
(33:23):
The whole tone scale is a six note scale, in
which each note is a whole tone away from its neighbors.
It was a favorite cue for magical scenes in TV
and movies from the sixties, such as Bewitched. This scale
is also used in other musical compositions too. Stevie Wonders
You Are the Sunshine of My Life is one such song.
(33:44):
The magical sound is often enhanced when the scale is
played on a harp or a marimba. Thanks for the
great shows, John, Well, thank you so much, John for
answering that question. And now that you've explained it, I
realized that I sort of know what you're talking about,
and even wonder if this may have come up in
the show in years past when we were talking about music,
(34:06):
Like we did some episodes about music being used in
horror movies and things like that. But I guess this
is sort of the curse of being barely semi literate
in music, as I am, like, I know just enough
music theory to screw around, but not enough to know
what I'm doing or talk about it. But anyway, to
make this concept clear, I made a little audio illustration
here of three scales. So we've got the C major scale,
(34:36):
then we've got the C minor scale, and then this
is the six note whole tone scale starting on C.
(35:00):
So if you think about the third one there in
relation to the first two, it seems kind of eerie
or magical. And again, I'm by no means an expert
on music theory or even in the psychology of music,
so I'm just speculating here, but I'm wondering if this
feels eerie or magical to people because it's musically ambiguous.
(35:24):
Most of the music we listen to is in a
major or a minor key, so there, you know, it's
one of those first two scales that we played. It's
a major or a minor key with a clear root note.
And even if people don't know music theory, we're intuitively
familiar with musical conventions because we listen to music, so
you know the cultural conventions of music and your culture.
(35:46):
You just kind of feel them. And we're usually expecting
a song to feel like a major key or a
minor key, and whole tone scale violates our expectations because
it refuses to feel like either a major or a
minor key. It's neither one. It's sort of pointing off
in both directions, and it also refuses to let you
know what the root note of the scale is, so
(36:09):
it feels like it is breaking the laws of music,
kind of like magic does, and so it's sort of unsortable,
and that makes it eerie and unsettling. That's my take.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Yeah, I can feel myself beaming up or shrinking, or
becoming gigantic in size, whatever the effects of the magic
slash science fiction happens.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
To be writing a comment until you eat brains.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Yeah, all right, Well, you know, I think we have
we essentially have time for one more message, but I
have a couple of short ones here, so I'm I'm
going to try and roll through these really quickly. Okay,
all right, column writes in to purely to suggest for
weird House Cinema the nineteen eighty one film Kung Fu Zombie,
directed by sham Wa. This is not a film that
(36:56):
I was super familiar with, but just looking into it
a little little bit, let's see, it's from the director
of Inframan, which we've talked about. Good yeah, and it
has music ripped off from a James Bond movie. So
I think those are two strong compelling indicators. Plus zombies
plus kung fu very good.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
Call him, you know how to get our attention. The
poster of it is I've got to see this. It's
kung Fu zombie dripping blood over the title and the
O in zombie is a skull, a pink skull. So yes,
I've got to see it, starring Billy Chong. I don't
know if we've seen anything else with Billy Chong, and
don't know if I know him, but he looks so determined.
He's like breaking free from some rope bindings and there's
(37:38):
water splashing everywhere. And then is this a flying kung
Fu vampire behind him?
Speaker 2 (37:43):
It looks like it. Yeah, yeah, I don't think we've
talked about Billy Chong before, but yeah, Indonesian martial artist,
actor and stuntman Strong contenders.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
Thank you call him yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
And then finally Jim rides in and says, hey, guys,
I think a Red Brown film fest sounds like a
lot of fun. I've seen many of his films and
he's had an interesting co star, Christopher Lee. They co
starred in Captain America two, Death Too Soon and Howling
Too Your Sister Is a Werewolf. Both are great weird films,
perfect for weird house.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
Jim Thank you, Jim. I've seen The Howling Too, your
sister is a werewolf. I don't remember a lot about it,
except that it felt to me like the entire movie
was just Sybil Danning doing that pose that you see
in any still from the film. And as for the
Reb Brown Captain America or Captain America Too, I didn't
(38:36):
realize there was a second Reb Brown Captain America. I
may have already said this on the show recently. I
don't remember if this was on micro Off, but I
have been wanting to do an Alt Captain America fest
on Weird House, including the Albert Pyune directed movie from
I don't know nineteen ninety or whenever that was, and
the Reb Brown Captain America stuff, of which apparently there
(38:58):
were even more than I knew of.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
Yeah, yeah, you've definitely denighned the the Captain America films recently,
and we both have recently watched The Howling, the original one,
so both of both of these films are kind of
under radar at the moment.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
Oh and everybody just treat yourself to looking up some
stills of Christopher Lee in The Howling Too with the sunglasses.
Oh god, it's amazing.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
All right, well, we're going to go ahead and close
it out there, but certainly you keep the Weird House
Cinema recommendations and suggestions coming, keep writing in with feedback
for our core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
our short form episodes, anything else, past episodes of Invention.
It's all fair game. Just a reminder that Stuff to
bliw Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast,
(39:45):
with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. You can find
us wherever you get your podcasts. Just look for Stuff
to Blow your Mind. If you're on what Instagram, we're
s stbym podcast there, and if you're on a letterboxed
you can find our account. We are Weird House and
that's where you can keep up with all the movies
we've covered thus far on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
you can email us at contact at Stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1 (40:24):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind listener mail.
This is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
And this is Joe McCormick. And hey everybody, we are
back after being out for a week. You know, we
have an auspicious beginning here because, as our producer JJ
just let us know, we began this recording session at
the exact moment that Agent Dale Cooper enters Twin Peaks
at the beginning of the series. This is February twenty fourth,
eleven thirty am. So I don't know what to make
(00:36):
of that, but maybe off to get some pie today.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
All right, well, let's go ahead and jump into some
listener mail here. We've got some really good ones, a
number of listener mail pieces devoted to our episodes on
Cotton Candy. But first, this one comes to us from
Troy regarding our episode on Io. This is, of course,
the one of the moons of Jupiter that we revisited
(01:01):
in full on the podcast. Troy writes, Hi, Joe, Robert,
and JJ, I recently listened to your podcast about Io
having volcanic eruptions strong enough to reach exit velocity. Then
you mentioned several ideas related to achieving exit velocity from Earth,
but did not mention Verne's book Jules vern Of course,
(01:24):
I am probably not the only one, but this reminded
me of the classic book by Jules vern where some
gun club guys decided to shoot a cannon ball at
the Moon. Later in the story, the cannon ball is
scrapped for a more capsule shape so the ball won't spin.
Somebody proposes to make the ball. Essentially a ship from
the Earth to the Moon eighteen sixty five and its sequel,
(01:46):
Around the Moon eighteen seventy by Jules vern Our pioneering
works of science fiction and depict an ambitious attempt to
send men to the Moon using a massive cannon. The
story follows the Baltimore based Gun Club, a group of
artillery enthusiasts led by President MP Barbicane. After the end
of the American Civil War, the club seeks a new
(02:07):
challenge and decides to construct an enormous cannon to launch
a projectile to the Moon. Eventually, Barbicane, Arden and Barbicane's
rival turned ally, Captain Nickel, decide to travel inside the
projectile themselves. In Around the Moon the sequel, the three
passengers experience weightlessness, observe Earth and the Moon from space,
and face the danger of being trapped in orbit. A
(02:29):
near miss with the Moon results in their capsule falling
back to Earth, where they safely land in the ocean.
Right Troy goes on to discuss some of the technology
used in this science fiction book. The massive cannon named
the Columbiad, is nine hundred feet two hundred and seventy
four meters long and is built in a deep pit
dug into the ground in Tampa, Florida. It is designed
(02:51):
to fire an enormous hollow aluminum shell the spacecraft carrying
the three men. To reach the Moon, the projectile needs
to achieve an escape velocity of l two hundred meters
per second approximately twenty five thousand miles per hour. Burne's
calculations were impressively close to modern physics, though the concept
of using a canon to achieve such speeds would be
lethal due to the extreme acceleration. I thought the book
(03:14):
had great character development and attention to detail. They even
had a type of water mattress designed to push the
water out of vents during the initial launch to dampen
the g forces give up the great work. Troy. Ps
one more thing. I also thought it was impressive how
they decided to point the canon vertically at the moon,
but had to bury the whole cannon to prevent the
(03:35):
canon from exploding. One of the main characters had body
parts missing due to one of his canons accidentally exploding,
so they decided to bury the canon for extra strength.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Oh thank you, Troy. Yeah, interesting contribution. So I never
read this novel. I read several other things by Jules
Vern when I was younger, and I had a copy
of this book, And now I'm ashamed to say that
I was discouraged from ever reading it because I was
sort of glancing through it and thinking, I don't think
(04:06):
they're going to see any aliens in this. This feels
like an alien's free space adventure book, and I'm just
not interested in that. Looking back on that now, I
think that was a narrow minded way to approach science fiction,
But I don't know that's how I was then.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah, I think maybe I've only ever read twenty thousand
Leagues under the Sea, though I don't remember much about
the experience. My kid recently had to read it for school,
and I don't think they enjoyed the experience. But then again,
such as the case sometimes when you're having to read
things for school.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
I remember liking twenty thousand Leagues and I read Journey
to the Center of the Earth and I liked that.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Yeah. I know. I've seen multiple film versions of various
Vern novels, and a number of those are a lot
of fun. I don't think we've covered one on Weird
House Cinema though, have we? Have we covered a Vern's
a direct Vern's adaptation?
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Well, we did Invention for Destruction, which I think it
was a loose adaptation of a different not of a
novel by Jules Vern. I forget the name of it. Sorry,
I just had to look it up. The Vern novel
that was based on was called Facing the Flag alternately
for the Flag from eighteen ninety six.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Yeah. Yeah, And the film that we watched was a
nineteen fifty eight black and white science fiction adventure film, yeah,
which was wonderful. Yes, I remember it as being very
visually pleasing.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
But to your point, yeah, there are some great movie
adaptations of Vern. I mean, the twenty thousand Leagues with
James Mason is how do you beat that? It's James Mason.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
All right, but all this has just been a preface
to Cotton Candy Joe dig into the Cotton Candy Force.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Oh all right, let's see. Well here, I'm going to
start with this message you pulled in from discord from
listener Eric. Eric says, I'm usually over in the Weird
House channels, but I recently listened to the Cotton Candy
two parter. I was especially drawn to these episodes because
(06:01):
I used to work at a movie theater with a
cotton candy machine, and not to toot my own horn,
but I got pretty skilled at spinning some of the biggest,
fluffiest bags of cotton candy you've ever seen. One thing
I don't think was touched on, though it's probably obvious,
is just how sticky the process is. Most cotton candy
(06:21):
sessions left me covered in tiny sugar crystals embedded in
my hair and eyelashes, to the point where I felt
the need to wash my face afterwards. But it gets worse.
Sometimes after running around cleaning theaters, I'd be sweaty and
we'd need to whip up a fresh batch. Oh, the
sugar would stick to my face and even my eyelids.
(06:45):
Just imagine trying to blink with sticky eyelids. Despite all that,
making cotton candy was ridiculously fun and none of it
stopped me from becoming the resident cotton candy master at
my theater. Anyway. Great episodes, awesome job guys. Thank you Eric.
That is so gross. Just thinking about that makes my
skin crawl, and so I have no choice but to
(07:07):
respect your courage.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Yeah, it shockingly close to killer clowns from outer space
territory with that story.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Yeah, makes you think they could get you cocooned pretty easy. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
I did not have any cotton candy over the break,
but I went with my family and some friends to
San Diego Zoo, which is a pretty amazing zoo. A
lot of cotton candy there. Having done these episodes about
cotton candy, I was just seeing it everywhere in ways
that I normally maybe don't pay that much attention to it.
(07:39):
But I did feel a certain residual stickiness at times.
When I watched a child consuming a big cone of
the stuff, you can almost like feel the sugar in
the air. Occasionally there was some discarded on the ground,
and there was actually at least one like automated cotton
candy machine. I didn't really spend much time with it
(07:59):
because I want to attract any of the children and
our party over to it. But I was tempted at
that point. I was like, if this, if no one
was around, I might put some money in this machine
and see what happens.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Sneak away for stealth adult cotton candy.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Yeah, all right, This next one comes to us from Phoenix.
Phoenix says, good morning. I enjoyed the Invention podcast so
much and was sad to see it go, So I'm
always thrilled when you guys dive back into these topics. Now,
what is Phoenix talking about here? Well, for a short while,
(08:35):
Joe and I had a separate podcast titled Invention. You
can still find that podcast feed out there, and we
did I don't remember how many episodes, each one tied
to an Invention. Now, at some point or another, I
think all those episodes were republished in the Stuff to
Blow your Mind podcast feed, and we've continued on with
the spirit of those episodes, occasionally doing some sort of
(08:57):
an Invention themed episode, and we usually work the world
Invention into the title, just to make it clear that's right.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
So while we no longer produce Invention as a separate
show on its own feed on a set schedule it
lives on, we will still keep doing these episodes from
time to time.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Yeah, I mean go check them out. The show does
get listened, so I stand by those episodes. There were
a lot of fun anyway, Phoenix continues, I just wanted
to share a little something. As a teenager, I worked
at an amusement park and occasionally I had to make
the cotton candy. As you guys stated, it has a
very short shelf life. Part of this is because it
(09:34):
absorbs the moisture in the air. But another attractive feature
of cotton candy is how light an aira it is,
and that does not last very long because it starts
to collapse and condense under its own weight within a
matter of hours, and so by the second half of
the day, any pre made cotton candy was pretty second
rate to the fresh stuff. We actually wouldn't make very
much of it, and someone would make new bags every
(09:55):
few hours to try and keep it nice and fresh
for the patrons. Thanks again for all ways sharing such
amazing and wonderful topics, Phoenix.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
I wonder if there is a selection process in play,
like the cotton candy vendor sees a person approaching and decides,
does this person are they gonna be the type who
complains if they don't get the good stuff? Or is
this a kid who's not going to know the difference,
Like you can give them the old collapsing cotton candy
and it's just just fine.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Yeah, Or maybe do they need a little enticing Do
they need to see someone making cotton candy to sort
of cinch the cell to the child and or the
parents who have to produce the money that sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Can you imagine though, the parent who tries to bargain
with you, So the parents like, no, no, I'm not
paying for that old cotton candy, I need fresh stuff
for my kid.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Yeah, oh, I can imagine that. I can also imagine
the reverse. You're like, don't give me that fresh stuff.
I want the old stuff. Give it to me a discount.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Oh well, speaking of that, that will tie into our
next message. Are you ready for me to read this
one from Sheldean.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Let's do.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Okay? Sheldyan says, Hi, Rob, Joe, and JJ, it's such
a weird coincidence that you did the two episodes on
cotton candy because it's been on my mind recently. I
loved it as a kid, but as an almost fifty
year old, it's just too sweet now. So I'm South
African and we call it candy floss there. My recollection
is that as a child, we'd have to go to
(11:23):
the beach to get candy floss. There were usually vendors
selling various types of foods, and if we wanted fresh floss,
that was the place to go. But we could also
usually get it at markets, fairs or fetes. Another interesting
variance is we'd get it in a plastic bag. I've
never had candyfloss on a stick or holder of any type.
(11:44):
Even when my kids were young, that was the way
of it, but by the time they came along early
two thousands, we could also buy candy floss at the
shops in small airtight buckets. In Afrikaans, it's got a
great name spook a sim or maybe a spoke a sim,
which means ghost breath, keep up the great work regards Sheldane.
(12:06):
And then here's the ps that ties into what you
were saying, rob Ps. I forgot to add having candy
floss in a plastic bag also helped create the way
I like to eat it. You'd have to unknot the bag,
which is always puffed full of air, and then I'd
squash the floss flat into a sugary piece of crunchy board.
The best way to eat.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
It, I mean, fair enough, that's just not a wrong
way to eat cotton.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
I say, with affection, what is wrong with you?
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Well? I will say that had I grown up being
exposed to cotton candy as ghost breath candy, I would
have probably had it a bit more, and maybe it
would have a warmer place in my heart. All right,
let's see what else do we have from the cotton
candy archives here. This one comes to us from Pat.
(13:01):
Pat says, I very much enjoyed your episodes on cotton candy. However,
I truly dislike cotton candy itself. I am not one
to eat many sweets. In fact, after the abundance of
candy from Halloween and Easter, I give a lot of
it to my sister, who consumed it quite quickly. I
took days to eat all of mine. Mom sometimes asked
if I was taking so long just to torture my sister,
(13:22):
and it did indeed torture her. As much as I
dislike cotton candy, I do like a pinch of maple
cotton candy. Living in the Northeast, we are blessed with
sugar maple trees, and someone must have decided to use
maple sugar to make cotton candy. It is amazing. One
pinch is enough so I can avoid a sugar crash,
(13:42):
but I'm always tempted to eat more. I'm glad I
found your podcast and the fantastic variety of subjects you cover.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Oh thanks so much, Pat, You know you've got me interested.
I am not usually very into the idea of eating
cotton candy, but maple flavored I would give that.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Ah, I would give it. I would give it a pinch,
much like this. I probably have a pinch of it,
and then I don't know, hold the rest under a
water foucet or something to destroy the evidence. But yeah,
that does sound interesting. Oh, by the way, Pat also
had a question about where to find the old Invention episodes.
(14:20):
You should still be able to find that podcast feed
out there wherever you get your podcasts, just look for
Invention or Invention podcast. Our names are going to be
mentioned in the about data. But I just did a
quick internet search and it seemed to come up pretty
easily on my end, So just turn around you should
(14:40):
be able to find it. If you're having trouble, email
us and we'll send you a link.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Side note, You can, of course listen however you want,
but if you just want to listen in a way
that helps us out the most, you might want to
listen if we've rerun the episode, listen to the one
on the stuff to blow your mind. Feed that gives
us another little ping.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, all right, Joe, have we had enough
cotton candy for the day?
Speaker 3 (15:10):
I think we have. Let's see, how about we do
some messages in response to our series on pretend play.
I'm gonna read this one from Sauna. Saana says hello
from Sweden. I've been listening to you guys for years
now and the pretend Play episodes were really interesting. I
work as a dentist in northern Sweden and I use
pretend play every week. The child patients, mostly between the
(15:34):
ages of four to seven, who have to go through
a filling of a tooth, can be a bit nervous
or scared by creating a story or a play around
the treatment, the whole thing usually goes more smoothly. The
drill becomes the shower, the cavity is the house of
the tooth bacteria or tooth trolls in Swedish what and
(15:56):
the filling material is the door to prevent new tooth
trolls going back into the tooth. The young children can
become really invested in the stories and it makes the
experience a bit more fun. Best regards Sauna, oh.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Man, tooth trolls, ghost Breath, There's so many wonders here
that I missed out on, while not missing out on
the things that they're not the awful things that bear the.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Name the House of the tooth Bacteria one of the
lesser known Christopher Lee films.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Yeah, but this is.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Delightful to think about, and it makes me wonder how
like you couldn't do this with adults because they would
be like, why are you playing this game and talking
about tooth trolls. I'm an adult. You know, people would
probably feel disrespected by trying to do this with them.
But I feel like if adults could be game for
this kind of thing, it might actually help.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Yeah, most adults are probably not going to react fondly too.
You've got tooth trolls, so you have to sugarcoat it.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Or you may not sugarcoat it, Like you can't play
the pretend game with adults. But even if it might
actually help with adults, if they were a game for it.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
I think they. I think most adults would would and
would be in our game for a different sort of
sugar coating, you know. I feel like, you know, sometimes
it's just it's freshened up clinical language and so forth,
And I mean it's probably gonna vary worldview to worldview.
But yeah, I think I think you still have to
sugarcoat things for adults in these situations. It's just a
(17:32):
different form of sugarcoating, and maybe it's a little less
overtly fun. But I think you should maybe have the
option to sign on for pretend play. Why not? All right?
This one comes to us from Matt. Matt says, Hey, guys,
I thought I might drop you a line about something
I remember from my early childhood with regard to imaginative play.
(17:54):
There's one experience in particular that stands out in my mind.
I grew up in a highly religious family that had
the rule that we could not play outside on Sunday
to keep the Sabbath day holy and all that. On
the day in question, I snuck outside to do just that,
play outside with the other neighborhood kids. They were pretending
they were in a gang, and we were carrying around
(18:14):
sticks with grape fruits stuck to the end that they
called their weapons. This was in Florida, by the way,
so such fruit trees were not hard to come by.
Now the part I want to mention about this. At
my young age, I was uncertain whether they were pretending
or if they actually believed they were a threatening cohort
with these deadly fruits on sticks. Additional relevant information, I
(18:36):
believe that I might have some level of autism, though
no diagnosis was ever attempted due to my parents' religious
and political beliefs, and I am unsure if that uncertainty
is a sign of that or if it is a
common experience as we learned to model the minds and
behaviors of others. But in any case, I thought it
might be an interesting point of discussion for you guys.
Whatever your thoughts, I'd be interested to hear them this
(18:58):
regarding how to evaluate the gang of children whether they
were pretending to be in a gang or actually in
a gang.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
They thought they were actually in a gang.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Yeah, yeah, I guess it's it's kind of difficult right
to gauge that because I'm just thinking, like the mindset
of the kids who are pretending to be in a gang,
At what point does that become being in a gang?
You know, even if you set out to pretend. Like
I remember part of my childhood, this would have been
in a few years that I lived in Canada, there
(19:32):
were kids that had these sticks with nails through them,
so it was like very mad Max and I guess
this was around the time of like road War or something,
but they were they were sticks with nails through them,
Like you could have messed somebody up with these, but
they were toys and the kids kind of acted like
they were in some sort of a post apocalyptic gang.
(19:53):
But since they had sticks with nails through them, who's
to say they were not.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
Yeah, that race is a really good point. There. There
were different types of sort of pretend architecture for pretend
to play. So one is where the as if world
is changing objective facts about reality. The banana is really
objectively not a phone, but you can pretend it is.
But there are other types of pretend play where what
(20:18):
you're pretending about our mind states and intentions. So like
play fighting, the pretense there is like we're acting as
if we were really fighting, but we're not really fighting,
and all it would take for that to become really
fighting is a change in the minds and intentions of
(20:38):
the people playing, you know, so you're not like pretending
about some objective external fact in the world. You're just
pretending about what we're doing. And a gang is kind
of like that, isn't it. Yeah, Yeah, And to extend
from that point, I think with that second type of pretend,
where you're not pretending about objective facts in the world,
(20:59):
but you're pretending about intentions, it's easier to blur the
line between are we between are we just suspending disbelief
for the purpose of play, or do we really believe this?
It can kind of you can kind of get to
the point where you are intentionally not looking at that line.
You're like not, You're willing yourself not to notice whether
(21:21):
you are doing one or the other, at least for
the moment, and then something might an event might kind
of force you to acknowledge the line again and say, no,
this is really what we're doing. But I think a
lot of play as children, like when you get into
a kind of task, like, oh, we're trying to accomplish that,
you know. A listener wrote in I think at one
(21:41):
point about like collecting certain cicada shells to like get
a great bounty of money or something. You know, it's
like there's an objective fact about the world, like whether
you could actually get the money, but you're not at
that point yet whether you have to test whether that's true.
So instead you're just at the tensions point, are we
actually harvesting these cicada exoskeletons in order to get millions
(22:06):
of dollars? And you can kind just not look at
the fact of whether you really believe you're going to
get the money or not. You're just in the task
and you're fully absorbed.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. Now Matt continues here,
Matt says, side note on a topic you covered in
the same episodes. When I was little, I wanted to
an imaginary friend so bad, but I didn't know how
to make that happen. In a way I imagined it.
I thought such a friend would have their own autonomous
mind and personality. But every time I tried to conjure one,
(22:37):
I was well aware that I was the one actively
choosing the choices of anyone I imagined. I had a
very strong imagination, but there definitely were no illusions or
confusion about the separation between what was real and what
I was imagining, and I was sad about that. Anyways,
loved the show and look forward to continuing to hear
more of it as time moves forward. Thanks Matt. I
(22:59):
love this point Matt raises about like wanting an imaginary friend,
because you know, I can't relate to that, to that specifically,
but I think you know, at different points in life
you sometimes encounter like different models of this, like people
who have on one level or another claimed or proclaimed
(23:24):
to have connection to the unseen world, you know, be
it like in a religious experience or you know, some
sort of like paranormal experience. However, it's you know, framed
in a particular worldview or belief system. And if you
want that thing and you believe that it is accessible
at least on some level, and then you know pine
(23:46):
for it, you know, you can feel left out for
not having it. Why like why have I not seen
the lights in the sky, Why have I not heard
like the voice of God in my head? And so forth?
And of course there are a million different answers for
why that is going to be the case, and they
have to do with everything from the sorts of stories
were told and how they relate it to objective reality,
(24:09):
also to just the different mental experiences that people have
across different mind states.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Yeah, that's all true. I also wonder about I don't know, Matt,
I don't know if you have an opinion on whether
this is the case or not, But I wonder if
when you're saying you're sad about your inability to have
an imaginary friend that had thoughts and actions that seemed
to come from outside yourself, were you said just simply
(24:38):
because like that couldn't happen, that your imaginary friend all
came from you and you were conscious of that, or
were you said in a relative sense because you thought
maybe other kids had had more of a feeling that
their imaginary friend's actions came from outside theirselves, and that like,
relative to their experience, you couldn't have the same experience.
(25:00):
H Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (25:02):
Yeah, in which case, I guess that also raises the
question like were the other kids actually able to feel
like their imaginary friends were coming from outside them or
is that just how it looked from the outside. Actually,
on the subject of pretend play feeling real to kids,
like the question of whether you know you're pretending or not,
or whether you remember in the moment that you're pretending,
(25:24):
we also got this message from Joy Joy, says Dear
Robert and Joe. The discussion on how much children believe
the things they pretend brought to mind an instance of
ongoing pretend play. Two of my friends and I devised
during recesses in elementary school. One day, we found the
(25:46):
name Penny written on a piece of litter. We decided
Penny was a ghost who haunted the school. Penny was good,
but there was another ghost who was evil. For many months,
we spent our recesses trying to solve the mystery of
the haunting, which included occasional cases of pretend possession. Looking
(26:06):
back on that pretend play a couple of years later,
it struck me that we never paused to consider the
question of if the ghosts were real or just a
collaborative story. We were making up our searches, and any
incidents of possession would end as soon as the school
bell rang to call us back from recess. And when
one of my friends accidentally broke something of mine, a
(26:28):
purple ribbon that I carried around and pretended was a
dragon in unrelated pretend play, broke that while pretending to
be possessed, I definitely blamed her and not the ghost.
So on some level we must have known it wasn't real,
but we pretended that we thought it was, even to
ourselves best regards. Joy, Well thanks Joy. Yeah, like we
(26:52):
were saying, that connects to what we were just talking about,
and it makes me think that they're actually like multiple
levels of the suspetn of disbelief. So you can engage
in sort of first order suspension of disbelief, where you
are just you enter a mind state where you can
participate in a pretend game or in a work of
fiction without constantly being interrupted by the thought that this
(27:16):
is not real. You can just sort of take it
as is in the moment, and that in a way
involves a second order suspension of disbelief, which is willing
yourself not to ask the question of or not to
examine the issue of whether you are suspending your disbelief
(27:36):
about the game or the story. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, it gets really complicated really
quickly when we get into contemplations of like the creative
process and the gameness as you say, of all of this.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
Yeah, so we can be game for pretend while at
the same time, like if there is something that forced
us to exit that temporary state of gameness, we can
recall what's real and what's not, so it's not actually
a confusion, a confusion in a permanent sense about what's
real and what's not. But we get into these mind
(28:13):
states where we like, we don't want anything to uh,
to break the break the illusion, to force us to
consider whether we do really believe what we're doing or
what we're saying at the moment. We want to we
want to like not have to examine that question for
the time being.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Yeah. It reminds me of some of the examples we
talked about, UH, audience members cheering on a like a
pro wrestling performance, you know, yeah, where yeah, you don't
want to constantly come in and out of the willing
suspension disbelief. You want to you know, keep that going
for a little bit. It's going to be a massive
bummer if you have to keep coming in and out
of it.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
Right, Yeah, so you like, you know it's not real,
but it's also annoying to you if somebody, if like you,
are reminded that it's not real.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Yeah, all right, let's go ahead and move on to
some weird house cinema listener mail here. This first one
I'm going to read. This one comes to us from Carrie.
(29:18):
Carrie writes Deer Robin Joe. Now that you've run the
thing from another world twice, unstuffed, blow your mind. I
believe one of those is where rerun you need to cover.
My other favorite sci fi monster movie nineteen fifty four's Them,
featuring giant radiation induced mutant ants running them up. It
has a good plot and work by some accomplished actors
(29:39):
James Whitmore, Edmund Gwyn, James Arnest a year before he
began his twenty year stint as Marshall Matt Dillon in
TV's gun Smoke, and small roles by Fess Parker, dub Taylor,
and an up and coming young actor named Leonard Nimoy.
For the time, most of the special effects are pretty
good too. If you haven't seen it, you should if
you've avoided doing so because of comments you've seen or
(30:01):
discounting it as schlock. Remember that kept you from watching
The Thing from Another World and you were glad you
finally did. Anyway, Please put it on your list and
keep up the good work.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
Care Oh well, thank you, Kerry. Recommendation noted, and yes,
them has been on my list for a long time.
I know it's one of the peaks sort of atomic
age giant bug movies, which is fun. I've seen a
lot of the lesser ones, but I've never seen like
one of the main ones, which is this film. But
I was a little confused by your last comment about
avoiding it because it might be seen as schlock. Have
(30:33):
we ever expressed an unwillingness to watch schlock? That seems
quite out of character. This must be based on something
we said, or maybe I said, but I don't remember
what that would be.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
I think what he's referring to here is that, in
talking about the original The Thing from Another World, I
believe I commented that I had always seen stills from
it and kind of discounted the picture because the monster
looked goofy, whereas if you if you experience the monster
within the context of the film, it's actually quite terrifying
(31:07):
and there's a great you know, there's great suspense in
that film. So I think that is what Carrie is
referring to.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
That makes sense, and that's squares with my memory. Okay, well, yes,
we but we're not avoiding schlock. I guarantee you, Carrie,
I think you, if you've listened to the show enough,
we will engage with schlock. We go there.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Yeah, and I totally come back to them. I believe
I saw them or most of them on like a
daytime horror host scenario. This would have been the one
on like TBS that Grandma Monster hosted back in the day.
I distinctly remember watching at least part of this movie
on TV.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
Al Lewis, Yeah, yeah, yeah, all right. This next message
about Weird House is from John. Subject line magic music
cue in the Brainiac movie.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Hmm.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
This is something we asked about in the episode for
people to write in, and John answers a question we had.
John says, Hi, guys, I'm John from Salt Lake, long
longtime listener, occasional writer. I write music for movies, mostly
small independent films. In this week's Weird House Cinema Show,
(32:19):
you were talking about The Brainiac. At one point in
the movie, you mentioned a musical cue that sounds magical
or indicates that something magical has just happened, and asked
if it was a named thing. So, yeah, refresher, this
happened in the moment in The Brainiac where the count
is getting burned at the stake, but he looks up
(32:40):
and he sees a comet in the sky, and that
comet ends up being related to the brainy acts ability
to return hundreds of years later as this brain eating creature.
Unclear exactly whether the premise is fully magical or science fiction,
but it used this music cue on like a marimba
or a harp that was familiar to both of us.
(33:02):
It's like the thing that always triggers in a movie
or an old TV show when something magical or dream
like is happening, doulululu, you know. And we were asking,
is there a name for that musical cliche? So this
is what John is answering. John says, yes, there is
a named thing here. It's called the whole tone scale.
(33:23):
The whole tone scale is a six note scale, in
which each note is a whole tone away from its neighbors.
It was a favorite cue for magical scenes in TV
and movies from the sixties, such as Bewitched. This scale
is also used in other musical compositions too. Stevie Wonders
You Are the Sunshine of My Life is one such song.
(33:44):
The magical sound is often enhanced when the scale is
played on a harp or a marimba. Thanks for the
great shows, John, Well, thank you so much, John for
answering that question. And now that you've explained it, I
realized that I sort of know what you're talking about,
and even wonder if this may have come up in
the show in years past when we were talking about music,
(34:06):
Like we did some episodes about music being used in
horror movies and things like that. But I guess this
is sort of the curse of being barely semi literate
in music, as I am, like, I know just enough
music theory to screw around, but not enough to know
what I'm doing or talk about it. But anyway, to
make this concept clear, I made a little audio illustration
here of three scales. So we've got the C major scale,
(34:36):
then we've got the C minor scale, and then this
is the six note whole tone scale starting on C.
(35:00):
So if you think about the third one there in
relation to the first two, it seems kind of eerie
or magical. And again, I'm by no means an expert
on music theory or even in the psychology of music,
so I'm just speculating here, but I'm wondering if this
feels eerie or magical to people because it's musically ambiguous.
(35:24):
Most of the music we listen to is in a
major or a minor key, so there, you know, it's
one of those first two scales that we played. It's
a major or a minor key with a clear root note.
And even if people don't know music theory, we're intuitively
familiar with musical conventions because we listen to music, so
you know the cultural conventions of music and your culture.
(35:46):
You just kind of feel them. And we're usually expecting
a song to feel like a major key or a
minor key, and whole tone scale violates our expectations because
it refuses to feel like either a major or a
minor key. It's neither one. It's sort of pointing off
in both directions, and it also refuses to let you
know what the root note of the scale is, so
(36:09):
it feels like it is breaking the laws of music,
kind of like magic does, and so it's sort of unsortable,
and that makes it eerie and unsettling. That's my take.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Yeah, I can feel myself beaming up or shrinking, or
becoming gigantic in size, whatever the effects of the magic
slash science fiction happens.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
To be writing a comment until you eat brains.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Yeah, all right, Well, you know, I think we have
we essentially have time for one more message, but I
have a couple of short ones here, so I'm I'm
going to try and roll through these really quickly. Okay,
all right, column writes in to purely to suggest for
weird House Cinema the nineteen eighty one film Kung Fu Zombie,
directed by sham Wa. This is not a film that
(36:56):
I was super familiar with, but just looking into it
a little little bit, let's see, it's from the director
of Inframan, which we've talked about. Good yeah, and it
has music ripped off from a James Bond movie. So
I think those are two strong compelling indicators. Plus zombies
plus kung fu very good.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
Call him, you know how to get our attention. The
poster of it is I've got to see this. It's
kung Fu zombie dripping blood over the title and the
O in zombie is a skull, a pink skull. So yes,
I've got to see it, starring Billy Chong. I don't
know if we've seen anything else with Billy Chong, and
don't know if I know him, but he looks so determined.
He's like breaking free from some rope bindings and there's
(37:38):
water splashing everywhere. And then is this a flying kung
Fu vampire behind him?
Speaker 2 (37:43):
It looks like it. Yeah, yeah, I don't think we've
talked about Billy Chong before, but yeah, Indonesian martial artist,
actor and stuntman Strong contenders.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
Thank you call him yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
And then finally Jim rides in and says, hey, guys,
I think a Red Brown film fest sounds like a
lot of fun. I've seen many of his films and
he's had an interesting co star, Christopher Lee. They co
starred in Captain America two, Death Too Soon and Howling
Too Your Sister Is a Werewolf. Both are great weird films,
perfect for weird house.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
Jim Thank you, Jim. I've seen The Howling Too, your
sister is a werewolf. I don't remember a lot about it,
except that it felt to me like the entire movie
was just Sybil Danning doing that pose that you see
in any still from the film. And as for the
Reb Brown Captain America or Captain America Too, I didn't
(38:36):
realize there was a second Reb Brown Captain America. I
may have already said this on the show recently. I
don't remember if this was on micro Off, but I
have been wanting to do an Alt Captain America fest
on Weird House, including the Albert Pyune directed movie from
I don't know nineteen ninety or whenever that was, and
the Reb Brown Captain America stuff, of which apparently there
(38:58):
were even more than I knew of.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
Yeah, yeah, you've definitely denighned the the Captain America films recently,
and we both have recently watched The Howling, the original one,
so both of both of these films are kind of
under radar at the moment.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
Oh and everybody just treat yourself to looking up some
stills of Christopher Lee in The Howling Too with the sunglasses.
Oh god, it's amazing.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
All right, well, we're going to go ahead and close
it out there, but certainly you keep the Weird House
Cinema recommendations and suggestions coming, keep writing in with feedback
for our core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
our short form episodes, anything else, past episodes of Invention.
It's all fair game. Just a reminder that Stuff to
bliw Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast,
(39:45):
with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. You can find
us wherever you get your podcasts. Just look for Stuff
to Blow your Mind. If you're on what Instagram, we're
s stbym podcast there, and if you're on a letterboxed
you can find our account. We are Weird House and
that's where you can keep up with all the movies
we've covered thus far on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
you can email us at contact at Stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1 (40:24):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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