September 19, 2022 • 20 mins
Once more, it's time for a weekly dose of Stuff to Blow Your Mind and Weirdhouse Cinema listener mail...
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to stuff to blow your mind. Production of my
heart radio. Hey you, welcome to stuff to blow your mind.
Listener Mail. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick,
and it's Monday, the day of the week that we
read back some messages from the mail bag, messages you
have sent into our show account, which is if you've
never tried it before, contact at stuff to blow your
(00:25):
mind dot com. If you've got something interesting you want
to share some feedback on an episode, get in touch.
Let's see, Robbie mind if I start off here with
this message from Justina? Go for it. Okay. This is
actually response to a much older episode our series on
(00:46):
the Seven Day Week in the origins UH and effects
of grouping days into chunks of seven. So justina writes. Hi,
Robert and Joe. I'm about six months behind on my
podcast feed, so I just listen to your seven day
week episodes. When you started musing about what it would
be like to live on two different week lengths simultaneously,
(01:06):
like some ancient cultures might have done, I heard the call.
I know what it's like, and so do millions of
school children. I was in the first class in my
school district to experience the six day cycle. This was
back in nineteen eighty one to eighty two, and the
idea was new. Instead of having a class schedule that
followed Monday to Friday, we now had days a through F.
(01:30):
The reasons behind the six day cycle were twofold. One,
it let the different academic classes happen at different times
a day, since we all learned best at different times
of day. This way, math class wasn't always period one
and your foggy morning brain wouldn't put you behind for
the whole year. Number two, it also made sure classes
didn't get shorted or skipped to due to holidays. If
(01:53):
the last day of school before a break was c day,
the first day back would be a d day, regardless
of the day of the week. What made the whole
experience particularly dual timeline issue is the fact that the
six day cycle only applied to our academic classes. Other
classes like Jim, music, shop and the like stayed on
the old five day Monday to Friday schedule, so we
(02:16):
were truly living two different weeks simultaneously. What did it
feel like? It felt well normal. We had a system,
we understood the system and we just followed the schedule.
The fact that we might have English before music one
week and math the next wasn't a big deal. I
imagine the people in ancient cultures living two different cycles
also adapted easily. I suspect that the convergence to a
(02:39):
single system had more to do with the Times. Two
different types of market days overlapped, causing a personnel shortage,
rather than confusion about what day it was by the population.
These days, school calendars are totally wild. Take, for example,
the schedule for my local high school, and she includes
some links. They are trying to have classes at different
(02:59):
times of day in a balanced way and, oh, also
balanced the lunch times and other variables. It leads to
this madness, but the kids, they do it, they understand it,
they master it, so I think living both a seven
and eight day week would have been a piece of cake.
Smiley face, thanks for making my favorite podcast. All the best,
Justina W oh well, that's interesting. Yeah, I didn't even
(03:21):
think about academic calendars, but that's that's a wonderful example.
All right. This next one comes to us from Kenny.
Kenny writes in regarding our episode, or was it an
episode or episodes on the paradig series. Yeah, serious, yeah,
sometimes it's hard to remember. Sometimes it's hard to remember
(03:41):
when we have done an episode that was actually a
single episode. Uh, a lot of our episodes are multipart
these days. But Anyway, Kenny writes in and says, Dear
Robin Joe, I did not know I would find the
invention of the paragraph quite so fascinating. I was even
able to answer a pub quiz question on the pill
crow this week, which was a mighty coincidence, given I'd
(04:02):
never heard the word before in my life. As per
rob's request, here are some of my favorite opening paragraphs.
Some are probably pretty obvious. So Kenny sites the gunslinger
opening from from Stephen King. The man in black fled
across the desert and the gun slinger followed. We heard
from multiple people about this one. This is a great opening.
(04:23):
But then here's some other ones that Kenny includes. Uh,
in a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.
Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole filled with the ends
of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry,
bare sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down
on or to eat. It was a hobbit hole, and
that means comfort, and that is that, of course, is
(04:45):
from the hobbit. That's a great one. Uh, here's one.
This is one from a book by the name of
the title the Crow Road by Ian Banks, WHO's an
author I'm I'm very familiar with, but I have not
read this particular book. If I'm remembering correctly, this would
be one of the non sci fi books, because the
like the culture books and so forth are by Ian
(05:05):
in banks, and Ian Banks is just his what he
goes by, what he went by for books that were
outside of science fictional concerns. Quote. It was the day
my grandmother exploded. I sat in the crematorium listening to
my uncle Hamish quietly snoring in a harmony to box
mass in B minor, and I reflected it that it
(05:28):
always seemed to be death that drew me back to Glanok.
I have no idea where that's going, but that already
that sounds pretty intriguing. Once the grandmothers are exploding. Um,
there's music playing, galenock, this sounds very fascinating as well.
Uh So, yes, uh, that sounds like a good one.
That's a good hook. Alright. This one is from a
(05:49):
work that I'm not familiar with the Patricia mckillop riddle
of stars. Quote. Morgan of head met the High Ones
Harpist one autumn day when the trade ships docked at
toll for the season's exchange of goods. Oh, that's the
high ones harpist. Wow. Yeah, yeah, and again, and we
got a nice fantasy or sci fi sounding name. There
(06:11):
a couple of names. UH, there's a trade ships. Sounds
a fantasy novel. Yeah, alright, here's here's one. Um, I'm
going to read it and some of you may be
able to guess the source. In the beginning the universe
was created. This has made a lot of people very
angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.
This is, of course, from Douglas Adams, the restaurant at
(06:33):
the end of the universe. Strong entry. And finally, this one.
This one is also this is from a book I'm
familiar with. Everything starts somewhere, although many physicists disagree. That
is from Terry Pratchett's the hog father, which is a yea,
a wonderful Christmas read, and they also made a wonderful
TV mini series, or two part series, adaptation of it.
(06:53):
At David Warner in it played the head of the
guild of assassins, if I remember correctly. Oh Wow, I
don't know this book or this movie or Adaptation. But Yeah,
David Warner, I'm there anyway. Kenny, that says you'll probably
be swamped by day, so I'll stop there. Thanks for
all you do. Good picks, Kenny. Um. All Right, I
(07:19):
think we did a vault episode on sentient swords or
swords that talk uh, and we got a response from Michaela,
who writes. Hi, Robert and Joe, first of all, thank
you so much for the work you put into this
amazing podcast. I was listening to the vault episode on
sentient weapons and it reminded me of a few things.
One of them is this sentient shield that I had
(07:39):
home brewed. I think this is a d and d reference. Right, yes, okay, that,
while very useful, it had an annoying personality. Thinking back,
I don't know of any named sentient armor in mythology
or in D and D. magical armor absolutely exists, but
not named or sentient in the way weapons tend to be.
Perhaps it's harder to ascribe agency to our Mur as
(08:00):
armor rarely works in unexpected ways. That combatants don't directly control,
but even then one might say it was the armor
that moved them rather than their instinctual reactions driven by
adrenaline in the midst of battle. Any thoughts? Second was
one thing that I've been meaning to ask for a while,
and it's if you have ever brought something from your
(08:20):
research into a homebrew in one of your D and
D Games. I know I've paused many of your shows
to jot down some mythical item or cool, weird real
life place, creature or thing that might work in a
D and D setting. I'm not sure how I'll fit
them all in at this point when I eventually run
a game, but I'm very excited to see how players react.
Keep up the good work, Michaela. Well, that's yeah, so homebrewing,
(08:42):
for anyone unfamiliar, this is basically like when you you
create something for a game and you can homebrew, maybe
homebrewing the stats of something. Generally it's about stats, like
if you're you're homebrewing a particular magic particular magical item
or homebrewing a particular creature, that sort of thing. Like
you're saying, like you create a creature for your dn
d campaign, that does not exist in the monster manual right, yeah,
(09:06):
which which is is a rarity, especially now. It's like
if they if they don't have it in there officially,
then somebody's probably home brooded. Over the years. Uh, there
there have been some wonderful like third party publications that
have come up with a lot of that stuff. Um, like,
I guess in the fact in the past. I have
done that sort of thing before, but it becomes, Um,
(09:27):
I don't know. My experience that you sometimes risk running
into the situation where you have some sort of idea
that you're suddenly really excited to introduce into the role playing,
either as a character, as as a player or as
a dungeon master, and you can get so excited about
that idea you kind of forget that this is also
ultimately about the communal experience and maybe everyone else doesn't
(09:47):
know about this thing and they're not as excited for it,
and so it ultimately ends up being something that's mostly
just for you. Um. But that being said, of course
there are tons of great ideas in mythology and in
history to draw up on and UH, yeah, I mean
one can't help but do that a bit if you're
doing any kind of creative work within a role playing scenario,
(10:08):
either as a player or as a game master. My
favorite one I've heard about was the listener who wrote
in to say that they had home brewed, uh, the
psychic mind devouring giant crabs from attack of the crab
monsters by combining attributes of, I think it, kind of
base giant crab monster with like some mind flavor kind
(10:28):
of dynamics. That's right, that was a good one alright.
This next one comes to us from Troy. Troy writ
sin says. Hi, Robert, Joe and Seth, thanks for reviewing
krawl in one of your weird house cinema episodes. It
brought back many memories as a result of the episode.
(10:50):
I shared your podcast with my brother and he said
he liked the episode and we'll be shopping for a
glave replica on that's all right. Would be careful. The
glave looks kind of dangerous to handle, so make sure
you check on just how sharp it is. This might
be a reaction to the fact that I found glave
fidget spinners on Etsy. That's great anyway. Troy continues Um
(11:14):
and this is the portion of the email that I
referenced in a recent core episode. Troy right, right, and
says Robert, you said that you don't consider swimming fun,
but I would say it's only a chore if your
performance is below your expectation. I find running around the
lake near my house very fun and extremely challenging. I
(11:34):
envisioned impaired and can usually pick out a pedestrian within
about twenty to thirty feet. Beyond that distance it looks
like fog. Since I run typically at around a eight
twenty minute pace. That's eight minute twenty seconds, uh pace.
It is quite a rush trying to avoid collisions. I
carry my white cane folded up and enjoy saying hi
(11:55):
to people that I've passed. Two laps around the lake
is roughly seven miles, and the run makes me feel
accomplished and independent. That's good. Like I said, that there's
a lot of a lot of fun is inherently subjective.
Like I would you know me personally, I would say, well,
something can I can make me feel accomplished and independent,
but and it can also make me, you can also
(12:16):
feel like like work. So it's, like I say, it
varies greatly from individual to individual, but I enjoy hearing
these alternate takes on it anyway. Troy continues. Troy says
I think a potential topic down the road would be
assistive technology for the blind or disabled in general. I
believe you did an episode on prosthetics. My audio screen
reader called Jaws enables me to work on the computer
(12:40):
literally with my eyes closed. This is a great idea
for an episode. Yeah, I know we've talked about prosthetics
a little bit. I remember talking about like ancient Egyptian
examples of prosthetics. I believe there's a particular toe that's
rather ancient, ancient Um. But yeah, yeah, we haven't. We
haven't done a real deep dive into and even prosthetics.
(13:00):
I don't think have we? I mean I think I
don't think we've had a dedicated episode about it, but
it's like come up in other contents. One thing we
definitely did is, uh, we did an invention episode on Brail.
That's right, kind of fascinating and surprising history of reading
system touch based reading systems. Yeah, so that's the great
suggestion and Troy is not done making great suggestions, because
(13:23):
they say is last I wanted to give one movie
suggestion for you guys to cover. If it has not
already been covered, I recommend the last dragon from this
movie fits the fun category of Weird House Cinema. The
Part I love the most is when either character in
a fight scene appears to be getting the upper hand,
they start emitting a glowing neon color from their teeth.
(13:45):
I tried googling letter boxed Weird House cinema and was
unable to find the list of past movies. If the
above film is not in the list, you may want
to check it out. Cheers. Okay. Well, first of all, yes, letterbox,
that's L E T T E R B o x.
d uh. Yeah, if you go there, if you look
for a weird house, one word, that's that's our account
should come up, and we only have one list and
(14:05):
that's the list of the episodes. Um, so, Um, it
is there. Um. So, my apologies if anybody, as they'd find,
had trouble finding it. Um, it's also linked off of
the blog at some Muta, some MUTA MUSIC DOT com.
But in terms of the last Dragon, Y, yeah, this
is one that's been on my radar. In fact, I
was telling I was talking with you about it just
(14:27):
a few weeks back. Um, I one of the reasons
on my radars because it was one of the films
profiled on the CBC ideas episode that dealt with cult movies.
This is one that they singled out as being a
cult film. Uh, you know, despite the fact that I
think I don't, I remember in correctly, the last dragon
(14:47):
wasn't a huge financial hit by any means, but it's
it's so distinct. It's like a is a like a
like a a motown um production, like an epic motown
production with martial arts and fantasy and love and great
music and it's it's a little unlike anything else you
(15:07):
might expect to find. It looks absolutely magical. I haven't
seen it, but I would love to. So this is
a romantic martial arts musical produced by Barry Gordy, like
it sometimes called Berry Gordy's last dragon. Berry Gordy the
the music, music producer, record executive known like he was
(15:27):
the writer, or one of the writers of like I
want you back, like classic songs like that. Yeah, and
and the founder of the motown record label. Yeah, yeah, so, yeah,
it's true motown production and uh, you know, has a
pretty great cast and uh, yeah, I haven't watched it
in its entirety. Yet weirdly enough, William H macy is
in it. He has like a been role, but he's
(15:47):
he's in the cast Um. But yeah, this one's definitely
on the list. It's just kind of I guess it's
kind of week to week what catches our fancy, but
I have a feeling we'll get to the last dragon
at some point here. Alright. This next message is from Casey.
Casey says, hi, Robert and Joe. Recently some of my
(16:09):
son's friends introduced him to the world of Dungeons and
dragons and he was asking me to explain dungeons to him.
I realized that I really don't know much about them.
From the movies, I've learned that a dungeon is basically
a basement of a castle that functions as a jail
or torture chamber or where one might find the occasional
potions classroom or slytherin common room. I thought the history
(16:31):
and usage of real dungeons, versus their depiction and pop culture,
might be a good subject for you to cover on
your show, in the same vein as your cauldron episodes.
My son would also like to suggest that you cover
the beholder or the gelatinous cube on a monster fact episode.
On a different note, I was unfamiliar with the Jallo
Genre until I heard you talk about it on your show. UH,
(16:53):
jallow movies or, of course, these kind of violent CD
murder Italian murder mystery thrillers from the seventies, as some
great jallow highlights, or like the movies of Dario Argento,
like deep red and stuff. Anyway, Casey continues. So finding
out about the shallow genre, my mind immediately. You plugged
(17:13):
it into the tune of shallow from a star is born. Oh, Casey,
you have done violence to my brain by by doing
this to me. UH, Casey says. I know I regularly
find myself singing in the Jazz Jallo, in the Jalo.
We're far from the Jalos now. I just thought I'd
(17:34):
give you that little earworm on my way out. Thanks
for all the wonderful content, Casey. Casey, this is a
crime you have committed. That you did this to me,
that you did this to Robert and Seth and now
you've done it to every listener to this show. Absolutely atrocious. Actually,
I'm immune because I've seen need a version of a
star is born and I don't think I'm familiar with
this song. So, Oh, you know. Uh. So this is
(17:56):
from the most recent one, the one with the Lady
Lady Gaga Bradley Cooper, which, uh, I saw a couple
of years ago. Actually. I thought it was great, and
this song is indeed. It's great pop melodrama. It's yeah,
it'll get in you. Yeah, I didn't see it. Looked
like he might be a downer. So, oh, yeah, kind of.
It kind of is, but it's also, I don't know,
(18:17):
I thought it was good. whistlers. Not In it, though? Right, no, Oh,
he's in the one from the seventies, isn't he? It's
like Barbra streisand and Chris Christofferson. Right, Sam Elliot's in
the new one, though. Right, yes, Sam Elliott, I think,
plays Um Bradley Cooper's brother, maybe. Is that right? That
sounds right. Like, yeah, it's like he's like a much
(18:38):
older brother. Right, he's kind of his sort of manager
or something. Yeah, but it's yeah, it's got great music,
it's full of emotion, it's all that stuff, all right.
It does not have a like an unknown assailant going
around killing hands. It does not have like a needle
killer who wears a trench coat and a hat. Now,
(18:58):
of course there are jellow musicals, though, or at least there's.
Oh yeah, Folgi did one in particular. Um, yeah, there's
the movie murder, Rock, dancing death, which which I have
not seen, but you know it has, uh uh, Claudio
Cassinelli's in it. So you know that. That that tells
you something. It has music, it has stabbings, uh, you know,
(19:22):
everything you could possibly want out of a luccio Fulci musical.
I don't even know what to say about that. All right,
we're gonna and call it right there. But with we
thank everybody who wrote in for this episode and, yeah,
and in general, we should remind everyone. Yeah, we we
read all the emails that come in. We don't we
don't have time to respond to everybody via email and
(19:44):
we don't have have time to even use all of
the emails on the show, but we greatly appreciate all
the feedback, so keep it coming. If you have comments
on recent episodes of stuff to blow your mind, future
episodes of stuff to blow your mind, episodes of Weird
House artifact, monster fact, other listener mail episodes, all of
it is fair Games. So right in. We'd love to
(20:05):
hear from you. Huge thanks, as always, to our excellent
audio producer, Seth Nicholas Johnson. 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. Stuff
(20:28):
to blow your mind is a production of I heart radio.
For more podcasts for my heart radio, visit the I
heart radio APP, apple podcasts or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Welcome to stuff to blow your mind. Production of my
heart radio. Hey you, welcome to stuff to blow your mind.
Listener Mail. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick,
and it's Monday, the day of the week that we
read back some messages from the mail bag, messages you
have sent into our show account, which is if you've
never tried it before, contact at stuff to blow your
(00:25):
mind dot com. If you've got something interesting you want
to share some feedback on an episode, get in touch.
Let's see, Robbie mind if I start off here with
this message from Justina? Go for it. Okay. This is
actually response to a much older episode our series on
(00:46):
the Seven Day Week in the origins UH and effects
of grouping days into chunks of seven. So justina writes. Hi,
Robert and Joe. I'm about six months behind on my
podcast feed, so I just listen to your seven day
week episodes. When you started musing about what it would
be like to live on two different week lengths simultaneously,
(01:06):
like some ancient cultures might have done, I heard the call.
I know what it's like, and so do millions of
school children. I was in the first class in my
school district to experience the six day cycle. This was
back in nineteen eighty one to eighty two, and the
idea was new. Instead of having a class schedule that
followed Monday to Friday, we now had days a through F.
(01:30):
The reasons behind the six day cycle were twofold. One,
it let the different academic classes happen at different times
a day, since we all learned best at different times
of day. This way, math class wasn't always period one
and your foggy morning brain wouldn't put you behind for
the whole year. Number two, it also made sure classes
didn't get shorted or skipped to due to holidays. If
(01:53):
the last day of school before a break was c day,
the first day back would be a d day, regardless
of the day of the week. What made the whole
experience particularly dual timeline issue is the fact that the
six day cycle only applied to our academic classes. Other
classes like Jim, music, shop and the like stayed on
the old five day Monday to Friday schedule, so we
(02:16):
were truly living two different weeks simultaneously. What did it
feel like? It felt well normal. We had a system,
we understood the system and we just followed the schedule.
The fact that we might have English before music one
week and math the next wasn't a big deal. I
imagine the people in ancient cultures living two different cycles
also adapted easily. I suspect that the convergence to a
(02:39):
single system had more to do with the Times. Two
different types of market days overlapped, causing a personnel shortage,
rather than confusion about what day it was by the population.
These days, school calendars are totally wild. Take, for example,
the schedule for my local high school, and she includes
some links. They are trying to have classes at different
(02:59):
times of day in a balanced way and, oh, also
balanced the lunch times and other variables. It leads to
this madness, but the kids, they do it, they understand it,
they master it, so I think living both a seven
and eight day week would have been a piece of cake.
Smiley face, thanks for making my favorite podcast. All the best,
Justina W oh well, that's interesting. Yeah, I didn't even
(03:21):
think about academic calendars, but that's that's a wonderful example.
All right. This next one comes to us from Kenny.
Kenny writes in regarding our episode, or was it an
episode or episodes on the paradig series. Yeah, serious, yeah,
sometimes it's hard to remember. Sometimes it's hard to remember
(03:41):
when we have done an episode that was actually a
single episode. Uh, a lot of our episodes are multipart
these days. But Anyway, Kenny writes in and says, Dear
Robin Joe, I did not know I would find the
invention of the paragraph quite so fascinating. I was even
able to answer a pub quiz question on the pill
crow this week, which was a mighty coincidence, given I'd
(04:02):
never heard the word before in my life. As per
rob's request, here are some of my favorite opening paragraphs.
Some are probably pretty obvious. So Kenny sites the gunslinger
opening from from Stephen King. The man in black fled
across the desert and the gun slinger followed. We heard
from multiple people about this one. This is a great opening.
(04:23):
But then here's some other ones that Kenny includes. Uh,
in a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.
Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole filled with the ends
of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry,
bare sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down
on or to eat. It was a hobbit hole, and
that means comfort, and that is that, of course, is
(04:45):
from the hobbit. That's a great one. Uh, here's one.
This is one from a book by the name of
the title the Crow Road by Ian Banks, WHO's an
author I'm I'm very familiar with, but I have not
read this particular book. If I'm remembering correctly, this would
be one of the non sci fi books, because the
like the culture books and so forth are by Ian
(05:05):
in banks, and Ian Banks is just his what he
goes by, what he went by for books that were
outside of science fictional concerns. Quote. It was the day
my grandmother exploded. I sat in the crematorium listening to
my uncle Hamish quietly snoring in a harmony to box
mass in B minor, and I reflected it that it
(05:28):
always seemed to be death that drew me back to Glanok.
I have no idea where that's going, but that already
that sounds pretty intriguing. Once the grandmothers are exploding. Um,
there's music playing, galenock, this sounds very fascinating as well.
Uh So, yes, uh, that sounds like a good one.
That's a good hook. Alright. This one is from a
(05:49):
work that I'm not familiar with the Patricia mckillop riddle
of stars. Quote. Morgan of head met the High Ones
Harpist one autumn day when the trade ships docked at
toll for the season's exchange of goods. Oh, that's the
high ones harpist. Wow. Yeah, yeah, and again, and we
got a nice fantasy or sci fi sounding name. There
(06:11):
a couple of names. UH, there's a trade ships. Sounds
a fantasy novel. Yeah, alright, here's here's one. Um, I'm
going to read it and some of you may be
able to guess the source. In the beginning the universe
was created. This has made a lot of people very
angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.
This is, of course, from Douglas Adams, the restaurant at
(06:33):
the end of the universe. Strong entry. And finally, this one.
This one is also this is from a book I'm
familiar with. Everything starts somewhere, although many physicists disagree. That
is from Terry Pratchett's the hog father, which is a yea,
a wonderful Christmas read, and they also made a wonderful
TV mini series, or two part series, adaptation of it.
(06:53):
At David Warner in it played the head of the
guild of assassins, if I remember correctly. Oh Wow, I
don't know this book or this movie or Adaptation. But Yeah,
David Warner, I'm there anyway. Kenny, that says you'll probably
be swamped by day, so I'll stop there. Thanks for
all you do. Good picks, Kenny. Um. All Right, I
(07:19):
think we did a vault episode on sentient swords or
swords that talk uh, and we got a response from Michaela,
who writes. Hi, Robert and Joe, first of all, thank
you so much for the work you put into this
amazing podcast. I was listening to the vault episode on
sentient weapons and it reminded me of a few things.
One of them is this sentient shield that I had
(07:39):
home brewed. I think this is a d and d reference. Right, yes, okay, that,
while very useful, it had an annoying personality. Thinking back,
I don't know of any named sentient armor in mythology
or in D and D. magical armor absolutely exists, but
not named or sentient in the way weapons tend to be.
Perhaps it's harder to ascribe agency to our Mur as
(08:00):
armor rarely works in unexpected ways. That combatants don't directly control,
but even then one might say it was the armor
that moved them rather than their instinctual reactions driven by
adrenaline in the midst of battle. Any thoughts? Second was
one thing that I've been meaning to ask for a while,
and it's if you have ever brought something from your
(08:20):
research into a homebrew in one of your D and
D Games. I know I've paused many of your shows
to jot down some mythical item or cool, weird real
life place, creature or thing that might work in a
D and D setting. I'm not sure how I'll fit
them all in at this point when I eventually run
a game, but I'm very excited to see how players react.
Keep up the good work, Michaela. Well, that's yeah, so homebrewing,
(08:42):
for anyone unfamiliar, this is basically like when you you
create something for a game and you can homebrew, maybe
homebrewing the stats of something. Generally it's about stats, like
if you're you're homebrewing a particular magic particular magical item
or homebrewing a particular creature, that sort of thing. Like
you're saying, like you create a creature for your dn
d campaign, that does not exist in the monster manual right, yeah,
(09:06):
which which is is a rarity, especially now. It's like
if they if they don't have it in there officially,
then somebody's probably home brooded. Over the years. Uh, there
there have been some wonderful like third party publications that
have come up with a lot of that stuff. Um, like,
I guess in the fact in the past. I have
done that sort of thing before, but it becomes, Um,
(09:27):
I don't know. My experience that you sometimes risk running
into the situation where you have some sort of idea
that you're suddenly really excited to introduce into the role playing,
either as a character, as as a player or as
a dungeon master, and you can get so excited about
that idea you kind of forget that this is also
ultimately about the communal experience and maybe everyone else doesn't
(09:47):
know about this thing and they're not as excited for it,
and so it ultimately ends up being something that's mostly
just for you. Um. But that being said, of course
there are tons of great ideas in mythology and in
history to draw up on and UH, yeah, I mean
one can't help but do that a bit if you're
doing any kind of creative work within a role playing scenario,
(10:08):
either as a player or as a game master. My
favorite one I've heard about was the listener who wrote
in to say that they had home brewed, uh, the
psychic mind devouring giant crabs from attack of the crab
monsters by combining attributes of, I think it, kind of
base giant crab monster with like some mind flavor kind
(10:28):
of dynamics. That's right, that was a good one alright.
This next one comes to us from Troy. Troy writ
sin says. Hi, Robert, Joe and Seth, thanks for reviewing
krawl in one of your weird house cinema episodes. It
brought back many memories as a result of the episode.
(10:50):
I shared your podcast with my brother and he said
he liked the episode and we'll be shopping for a
glave replica on that's all right. Would be careful. The
glave looks kind of dangerous to handle, so make sure
you check on just how sharp it is. This might
be a reaction to the fact that I found glave
fidget spinners on Etsy. That's great anyway. Troy continues Um
(11:14):
and this is the portion of the email that I
referenced in a recent core episode. Troy right, right, and
says Robert, you said that you don't consider swimming fun,
but I would say it's only a chore if your
performance is below your expectation. I find running around the
lake near my house very fun and extremely challenging. I
(11:34):
envisioned impaired and can usually pick out a pedestrian within
about twenty to thirty feet. Beyond that distance it looks
like fog. Since I run typically at around a eight
twenty minute pace. That's eight minute twenty seconds, uh pace.
It is quite a rush trying to avoid collisions. I
carry my white cane folded up and enjoy saying hi
(11:55):
to people that I've passed. Two laps around the lake
is roughly seven miles, and the run makes me feel
accomplished and independent. That's good. Like I said, that there's
a lot of a lot of fun is inherently subjective.
Like I would you know me personally, I would say, well,
something can I can make me feel accomplished and independent,
but and it can also make me, you can also
(12:16):
feel like like work. So it's, like I say, it
varies greatly from individual to individual, but I enjoy hearing
these alternate takes on it anyway. Troy continues. Troy says
I think a potential topic down the road would be
assistive technology for the blind or disabled in general. I
believe you did an episode on prosthetics. My audio screen
reader called Jaws enables me to work on the computer
(12:40):
literally with my eyes closed. This is a great idea
for an episode. Yeah, I know we've talked about prosthetics
a little bit. I remember talking about like ancient Egyptian
examples of prosthetics. I believe there's a particular toe that's
rather ancient, ancient Um. But yeah, yeah, we haven't. We
haven't done a real deep dive into and even prosthetics.
(13:00):
I don't think have we? I mean I think I
don't think we've had a dedicated episode about it, but
it's like come up in other contents. One thing we
definitely did is, uh, we did an invention episode on Brail.
That's right, kind of fascinating and surprising history of reading
system touch based reading systems. Yeah, so that's the great
suggestion and Troy is not done making great suggestions, because
(13:23):
they say is last I wanted to give one movie
suggestion for you guys to cover. If it has not
already been covered, I recommend the last dragon from this
movie fits the fun category of Weird House Cinema. The
Part I love the most is when either character in
a fight scene appears to be getting the upper hand,
they start emitting a glowing neon color from their teeth.
(13:45):
I tried googling letter boxed Weird House cinema and was
unable to find the list of past movies. If the
above film is not in the list, you may want
to check it out. Cheers. Okay. Well, first of all, yes, letterbox,
that's L E T T E R B o x.
d uh. Yeah, if you go there, if you look
for a weird house, one word, that's that's our account
should come up, and we only have one list and
(14:05):
that's the list of the episodes. Um, so, Um, it
is there. Um. So, my apologies if anybody, as they'd find,
had trouble finding it. Um, it's also linked off of
the blog at some Muta, some MUTA MUSIC DOT com.
But in terms of the last Dragon, Y, yeah, this
is one that's been on my radar. In fact, I
was telling I was talking with you about it just
(14:27):
a few weeks back. Um, I one of the reasons
on my radars because it was one of the films
profiled on the CBC ideas episode that dealt with cult movies.
This is one that they singled out as being a
cult film. Uh, you know, despite the fact that I
think I don't, I remember in correctly, the last dragon
(14:47):
wasn't a huge financial hit by any means, but it's
it's so distinct. It's like a is a like a
like a a motown um production, like an epic motown
production with martial arts and fantasy and love and great
music and it's it's a little unlike anything else you
(15:07):
might expect to find. It looks absolutely magical. I haven't
seen it, but I would love to. So this is
a romantic martial arts musical produced by Barry Gordy, like
it sometimes called Berry Gordy's last dragon. Berry Gordy the
the music, music producer, record executive known like he was
(15:27):
the writer, or one of the writers of like I
want you back, like classic songs like that. Yeah, and
and the founder of the motown record label. Yeah, yeah, so, yeah,
it's true motown production and uh, you know, has a
pretty great cast and uh, yeah, I haven't watched it
in its entirety. Yet weirdly enough, William H macy is
in it. He has like a been role, but he's
(15:47):
he's in the cast Um. But yeah, this one's definitely
on the list. It's just kind of I guess it's
kind of week to week what catches our fancy, but
I have a feeling we'll get to the last dragon
at some point here. Alright. This next message is from Casey.
Casey says, hi, Robert and Joe. Recently some of my
(16:09):
son's friends introduced him to the world of Dungeons and
dragons and he was asking me to explain dungeons to him.
I realized that I really don't know much about them.
From the movies, I've learned that a dungeon is basically
a basement of a castle that functions as a jail
or torture chamber or where one might find the occasional
potions classroom or slytherin common room. I thought the history
(16:31):
and usage of real dungeons, versus their depiction and pop culture,
might be a good subject for you to cover on
your show, in the same vein as your cauldron episodes.
My son would also like to suggest that you cover
the beholder or the gelatinous cube on a monster fact episode.
On a different note, I was unfamiliar with the Jallo
Genre until I heard you talk about it on your show. UH,
(16:53):
jallow movies or, of course, these kind of violent CD
murder Italian murder mystery thrillers from the seventies, as some
great jallow highlights, or like the movies of Dario Argento,
like deep red and stuff. Anyway, Casey continues. So finding
out about the shallow genre, my mind immediately. You plugged
(17:13):
it into the tune of shallow from a star is born. Oh, Casey,
you have done violence to my brain by by doing
this to me. UH, Casey says. I know I regularly
find myself singing in the Jazz Jallo, in the Jalo.
We're far from the Jalos now. I just thought I'd
(17:34):
give you that little earworm on my way out. Thanks
for all the wonderful content, Casey. Casey, this is a
crime you have committed. That you did this to me,
that you did this to Robert and Seth and now
you've done it to every listener to this show. Absolutely atrocious. Actually,
I'm immune because I've seen need a version of a
star is born and I don't think I'm familiar with
this song. So, Oh, you know. Uh. So this is
(17:56):
from the most recent one, the one with the Lady
Lady Gaga Bradley Cooper, which, uh, I saw a couple
of years ago. Actually. I thought it was great, and
this song is indeed. It's great pop melodrama. It's yeah,
it'll get in you. Yeah, I didn't see it. Looked
like he might be a downer. So, oh, yeah, kind of.
It kind of is, but it's also, I don't know,
(18:17):
I thought it was good. whistlers. Not In it, though? Right, no, Oh,
he's in the one from the seventies, isn't he? It's
like Barbra streisand and Chris Christofferson. Right, Sam Elliot's in
the new one, though. Right, yes, Sam Elliott, I think,
plays Um Bradley Cooper's brother, maybe. Is that right? That
sounds right. Like, yeah, it's like he's like a much
(18:38):
older brother. Right, he's kind of his sort of manager
or something. Yeah, but it's yeah, it's got great music,
it's full of emotion, it's all that stuff, all right.
It does not have a like an unknown assailant going
around killing hands. It does not have like a needle
killer who wears a trench coat and a hat. Now,
(18:58):
of course there are jellow musicals, though, or at least there's.
Oh yeah, Folgi did one in particular. Um, yeah, there's
the movie murder, Rock, dancing death, which which I have
not seen, but you know it has, uh uh, Claudio
Cassinelli's in it. So you know that. That that tells
you something. It has music, it has stabbings, uh, you know,
(19:22):
everything you could possibly want out of a luccio Fulci musical.
I don't even know what to say about that. All right,
we're gonna and call it right there. But with we
thank everybody who wrote in for this episode and, yeah,
and in general, we should remind everyone. Yeah, we we
read all the emails that come in. We don't we
don't have time to respond to everybody via email and
(19:44):
we don't have have time to even use all of
the emails on the show, but we greatly appreciate all
the feedback, so keep it coming. If you have comments
on recent episodes of stuff to blow your mind, future
episodes of stuff to blow your mind, episodes of Weird
House artifact, monster fact, other listener mail episodes, all of
it is fair Games. So right in. We'd love to
(20:05):
hear from you. Huge thanks, as always, to our excellent
audio producer, Seth Nicholas Johnson. 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. Stuff
(20:28):
to blow your mind is a production of I heart radio.
For more podcasts for my heart radio, visit the I
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