Listener Mail: Back to the Garden

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

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My
Heart Radio. Hey are you welcome to Stuff to Blow
Your Mind? Listener mail. This is Robert Lamb and this
is Joe McCormick. And it's Monday, the day of each
week that we read back some messages you have sent
into the show account, which is contact at stuff to
Blow Your Mind dot com. If you ever want to

(00:23):
get in touch, if you want to suggest a topic
for a future show, to give feedback on an episode
we've already released, or even just to say hello, or
to share something interesting you learned. It's all fair game,
absolutely all right. I think I'm going to kick us
off here with this message about our episodes on asymmetry

(00:46):
from Nathan. I think we have two different messages from
somebody named Nathan today, but I think they're different. Nathan's so,
Nathan number one says, Dear Joe and Robert, your recent
podcast about asymmetry in nature minded me of an observation
I made about the distribution of stems and leaves that
branch out of a main stem in a plant. It's

(01:08):
well known that this branching follows an angle of the
golden ratio times three hundred and sixty degrees in many plants,
which results in, for example, Fibonacci numbers appearing in pine
cone and sunflower spirals. The golden branching angle is very
easy to spot in small shrubs, and in observing these,
I found that the direction the golden branching angle turns

(01:30):
as the stem grows can be either clockwise or counterclockwise,
but which direction the stem chooses cannot be predicted. I
first found different branching angle directions among different plants of
the same species, then noticed that both directions appear even
on different branches of the same plants. There is nothing
I've observed about the plants to tell me why the

(01:52):
golden branching angle would occur either clockwise or counterclockwise. But
there must be some molecular mechanism choosing for this, and
I'm fascinated it by what it could be. I thought
you might find that interesting. Thanks for all the work
you put into the episodes. I know I'm always in
for a full meal of knowledge when listening to YouTube
regards Nathan. Thanks Nathan, Yeah, that's interesting to wonder about,

(02:13):
and it ties into what we discussed, and I believe
the last episode of the series on asymmetry, about how
the about how the handedness of a bilaterally symmetrical body
or the you know, the pattern of symmetry breaking would
say the internal organs and a human body might have
something to do with like the way the cilia, the

(02:35):
little filament like hairs reaching out from the cell membrane
on a developing embryo work. Uh. And it's kind of
hard to imagine it, like that tiny, tiny mechanism on
the outside of a cell making a difference, but apparently
it does. Very interesting, very interesting. All right, here's another listener.

(03:00):
All This one comes to us from Chris. Chris says, Hello, Robert,
Joe and Seth. On your recent episode of The Skybridge
Part two, you were discussing how urban planning and design
of high rise living can impact social connections and overall
health outcomes of the population. There was some discussion about
future design for our increasing urban density and the need

(03:22):
for green space or more connection with the natural world.
This brought to mind the futuristic city imagined in the
world of susin Lose three Body Problem. It's been a
while since I've read the series, but I believe it
is first described in the second book the Dark Forest,
additionally featured in the final book, Death's End. In the books,

(03:42):
eventually all of humanity is driven underground due to catastrophic events.
Then eventually they enter kind of an enlightened age and
build beautiful underground cities where all the high rises resemble
large trees with trunks as the central columns, and then
branches with leaves hanging off. Each of the leaves is
in a living space for individuals and families. The books

(04:03):
do a much better job describing the setting than I do,
but when I was reading them, in my mind, I
couldn't help but picture a densely packed urban space that
didn't feel closed in. I think that a space like
that would be amazing for future cities with plenty of
room on the quote unquote forest floor so to speak,
for commerce, parks, sporting facilities, bike lanes, etcetera. Thanks again

(04:24):
for the interesting pair of episodes. Chris from Chicago. PS
have tickets for the Boat Architecture Tour in a few weeks.
I'll be on the lookout for the Wrigley Building. All right,
Well that sounds great. Yeah you won't. You won't be
able to miss it, that's for sure. Oh. Thanks Chris. Yeah, yeah,
this is interesting and it comes back to something that
we did talk about in in the Skybridge episodes, which

(04:44):
is how to manage the the somewhat zero sum problem
of if you're trying to pack more and more vertical
density into a city, density of both infrastructure and living space,
uh into a city, how to deal with the somewhat
zero sum access to the sky or access to sunlight.

(05:06):
Because obviously it would be good to have more parks
and green space up at the top levels, especially if
people are going to be spending more time up there
without coming down. But of course, as you need more
surface area up above, you are necessarily limiting the son's
ability to reach what lies below. Yeah. Absolutely, Now when
it comes to the three body problem. Um, I did

(05:28):
not read the second two books, but I did the
first book on on audio and it was it was
very entertaining, especially since the narrator did kind of a
voice like this for all the alien characters. All right,
what do we have next? Do you want to take
this one from Stacy? Sure? Stacy says, this is also

(05:51):
about sky bridges. Hello Robert and Joe. First off, thank
you for your help in dealing with isolation. I work
in customer service and have been working on telephone or
email based customer service rather than in person since the
start of the pandemic. It's gotten to the point where
we are all working in separate areas of the office.
Your podcasts are informative and engaging in a great way

(06:11):
to deal with loneliness. I just listened to your podcast
on Skybridges and I couldn't help but think back to
my college days. In my first English short literature class,
one of the stories we read was The enforced Ers
The Machine Stops. I'm surprised this story hasn't come up
in some of your past podcasts, given how many times
I think back to it while listening to your discussions.

(06:34):
Granted I haven't listened to every podcast yet. I'm working
on it, so if I am mistaken, I apologize. In
the story, the character has become so reliant on technology
in the form of a machine that sees all of
their needs, that they turn their backs on the natural world.
Then the day comes that the Machine Stops. Being a
work of short fiction, it isn't a long read, but

(06:56):
I think you would enjoy it. It's certainly left h
such a mark on me. I can remember it despite
reading it over ten years ago. Hope you both have
a lovely day, Stacy. I don't think I have read
this story, Stacy. What I've read by I. M. Forster
is uh a very different kind. I read his book
A Room with a View, which the main thing I

(07:17):
remember about that it's sort of a modernist romantic novel.
One of the one of the main things I remember
about it as a scene where some characters are kind
of frolicking in a garden in Italy and one tumbles
into a bed of flowers or something, and then someone
shouts down at them from the wall above courage and love.
That's always in my head. Yeah, I I have not

(07:39):
read this story either. I was just having to refresh
myself with the the notable works of I. M. Forrester,
and I think the only thing I've read is A
Passage to India, and that was a long time ago,
and I think I read it really quickly for a
class I was taking, But I remember liking I remember
liking it at the time. Yeah, we'll off to look
this story up. Thanks. As always, nobody hurt themselves trying

(08:01):
to listen to all the podcast episodes. There's no there's
no special award for for listening to all of them. Um,
there is a special award for watching all of the
movies we cover on Weird House Cinema. But it's but
that too, is not a physical reward that you hold
in your hand. It's a reward that you hold in
your heart. It's a reward based on courage and love.
But we we we appreciate the kind words. Thank you, Stacy.

(08:29):
All right, here's one that comes to us from Hannah.
They write in regarding Weird House Cinema. Um, Hannah begins
by saying some nice things about the show, but then
they go on to discuss a couple of different things,
at least one of which is not directly related to
Weird how Cinema but is interesting thenetheless less. So I'm
gonna read the whole email first and then we can

(08:50):
sort of break it down. Hannah writes, I've been binging
some really early episodes, so I can't remember if this
is from the Cauldron series or something earlier. But you
mentioned a Chinese myth about a hero who bursts in
and eats the demons of despair and loneliness that are
tormenting the Emperor. Maybe I'm misremembering this in a way
that suits my interpretation, but let's roll with it for

(09:11):
a second. I just started my clinical internship as a
mental health counselor, and I've thought a lot about that character,
because I think that's part of what we do, is therapists.
We help people by eating their demons of loneliness and
despair when we listen to what they share in session
and digested with them. Anyway, thanks again. I have a
weird how cinema suggestion that I think you guys would

(09:33):
get a huge kick out of if you haven't seen
it already, The Eyes of Laura Mars. It was based
on a script treatment by John Carpenter and became the
first of his stories to be made by a major studio,
though he did not direct it. Despite the major studio production,
it is deeply and ineffably weird. It stars Mia Pharaoh

(09:53):
and a shockingly young Tommy Lee Jones. Involves naked photo shoots,
a serial killer with mommy issues, cars on fire, big
city glamor, doomed love, men in turtlenecks, psychic visions, all caps.
This movie is such a mess. I almost forgot that
part and enough Red herrings for a Midwest church fish fry. Basically,
imagine deep Red. They're they're referring to the Dario Argento

(10:17):
film here. Now, think about John Carpenter rewriting riffing. It
sounds fun right now. Imagine that got taken away from
John Carpenter and someone tried to make it a mainstream movie,
but they forgot about the script until the weekend before
they started shooting, and they had an intern do all
the rewrites the night before. Oh. Also, Barbara Streisan was
originally considered for the lead, but she thought the nudity

(10:38):
and violence wasn't good for her brand, so instead of
appearing in it, she just wrote the torch song for
the movie. Whether you review it on Weird House or not,
please just accept this movie into your life and let
it enrich you. Thanks Hannah. Wow that I've never seen it.
That sounds great. So I guess there's two main parts
to address from this message. Well, let's keep rolling with

(11:00):
the eyes of Laura Mars first, since since that's fresher here.
But yeah, I've been eyeing this one for a bit
and it does have a terrific cast. So you've got
fade done away. Tommy Lee Jones, Brad Dorriff, Renee Auberzonwa
and Rawle Julia and by Irvin Kirshner as well. So
it's there's a lot of great names involved in this film.

(11:22):
I have not seen it yet, but especially after this description,
I'm I'm very interested. But yeah, can you believe we
haven't watched a Rale Julia film yet? You had me
at Rawl Julia. He's great and everything. Yeah, elevated everything
he touched. We we should just do a whole like
month of the show where we watch rale Julia's for
weirdest movies. Yeah, I mean he he made so many

(11:45):
things watchable. And you know, sometimes you have a you
have actors who can say that they did that once
or twice. Right, I elevated an otherwise low level film
and it was memorable. But for Rale Julia, it was
a Tuesday street Fighter reference there for everybody. Oh yes,

(12:06):
I think it was a Tuesday I could be misquoting that,
but it's a great thing in a great movie. As
for the demon Eater, this would be zen Qua, the
Demon Queller. We talked about this character in the episode
of Demon Eaters and Possessed Tools, and this was I
had to look back. This is January nineteen, which I

(12:26):
guess in the grand scheme of things, wasn't that long ago,
but it sure feels like a long time ago because
this was back when we were recording in person U.
But the basic story here, I'm not going to tell
the whole thing because I think we gave a pretty
good treatment of it in the episode. But basically, eighth century, Uh,
the emperor has a fever one night and he's assailed

(12:46):
by demons dressed in red hill a demon dressed in red,
and the demon identifies itself as being emptiness and desolation,
and the Emperor's powerless to stop it. But then incomes
this ghost in rag and he just swallows the demon hole. Uh.
And this is the This is the ghost of our
our demon eller, a demon eat or our demon queller

(13:08):
and uh, yeah, he's he is the immortal Exorcist and
their various stories involving him, and there's at least one
really cool piece of art. I think he's called the
um uh the gong Kai scroll from the Late Song dynasty.
And he's put the demons that he's quelled to work,
and so they're carrying him around on a litter. They're

(13:30):
carrying his sister around on a litter, and they're also
carrying I think, um like a dog and possibly some packages.
So it's it's really fun stuff. So if Hannah or
any other listener wants to look this up, how is
uh the name of this character usually spelled an English
script um. Usually I'm seeing it as as z h

(13:50):
O n G k U. I. There you go. That
that's a good memory. Good memory, Hannah, and I guess
the rest of that episode pertained to mostly Japanese traditions
of tools that had been possessed so um I. I
can't remember what was the bulk of that episode, but
a lot of magic in that one. If anyone wants

(14:12):
to to to look it up, well, I think a
big part of it was the Japanese folk concept of
the suku mogami um or the tool kami that were
like the spirits that would um, I don't know, spirits
that would inhabit disused tools, or maybe the tools would
gain sentience or gain a soul. And it had something

(14:34):
to do with tools that had been around for a
long time, like a tool that's like a hundred years
old or something without being thrown away sort of comes alive. Yeah,
and then they go and there's like a parade of
these things. Yeah. Technically a form of yokai, I think,
or at least by some classifications. Anyway, I've seen it
is discussed in yokai books before. I also seem to

(14:57):
recall that there's a major story of Out the Possessed
Tools that is used as as religious apologetics for a
certain strain of Buddhism. Okay, that sounds familiar. Okay, anyway, Robert,

(15:20):
you ready for the final message. Let's do it. The
final message. The final message, This one actually comes from
a different Nathan. Nathan had a lot to say about
a bunch of different topics. This was a great email,
but it's very long and there's no way we can
read the whole thing, so I'm going to feature a
few selections from it. Nathan says, greetings, gentlemen. First, during

(15:42):
listener mail this week on July two, the d C
character the question was mentioned. You probably know him better
than you think, as he served as the model for
Rorschach in The Watchman. The lore goes that Alan Moore
pitched his gritty tale depicting the demise of lesser known characters.

(16:02):
UH recently acquired by d C from the defunct Charlton Comics,
and he was ultimately allowed to create analogs. Most, if
not all, were Steve did co creations, the author best
known for co creating Spider Man and Doctor Strange. For Marvel,
Blue Beetle became the night Owl. I think Captain Adam

(16:23):
became Dr Manhattan, and other details elude me, but it's
interesting to trace the roots of what became one of
the best selling comics of all time. I'll echo the
other listeners sentiment and say, Jeffrey Combs makes that character remarkable.
Jeffrey Combs did the voice of this character of the
question on UM I think the animated Justice League. Nathan says,

(16:45):
you can find Justice League Unlimited on HBO Max, and
it would be worth your time to find the episodes
that focus on him, such as season two episode six,
Double Date, which is top notch. But he makes small
appearances in a season long subplot involved in an actual
conspiracy named for the god slaying mortal Cadmus, and it
totally pays off. A couple of years ago, I was

(17:08):
rewatching the quoted episode and this is referring to the
episode quoted in the earlier listener mail. The message was
about the question having a sort of Dale Gribble style
paranoid theory about the sinister implications of aglets, which are
the little plastic tips on shoelaces. Nathan goes on, I'd
heard the term before, I guess aglets and went to

(17:29):
look it up, but wasn't sure how to spell what
the question was calling the plastic tips on shoelaces. In
searching for aglet, I ran across an Inuit mythical creature
that might make for a good Monster Fact episode called
an adlet. Check out here if you're not familiar, and
Nathan provides a link. Also were referring to aglets. Nathan

(17:49):
asks if we remember the Seinfeld hosted SNL from long
ago with the Jeopardy parody where the parting gift was
thousands of quote? What do you call those things? Nobody knows.
I do not remember this, Rob, did you see this one?
I had no memory of this one. There there are
old episodes of SNL that that stand out of my mind,
like Patrick Stewart hosting with with special musical guest Salt

(18:11):
and Pepper, But I don't remember Seinfeld all Right after this,
Nathan makes some good suggestions for core episode topics on
things like space exploration and the biological evolution of sentience,
but then to to come towards the end of Nathan's message,
Nathan says, next Weird House. It's been a while, but
I still laugh about Blood Beat often because I happened

(18:34):
to reside near a fire station at the end of
the scene in Blood Beat where the first body was discovered.
I notice the sheriff turned on the sirens as he
was leaving the crime scene. What's the rush? Sometimes, your sheriff,
you just gotta you just gotta get to lunch. I
don't know. I'm glad to hear from someone else who
saw Blood Beat. It's it's it's worth worth checking out.

(18:57):
There aren't aren't too many Christmas I geeks slasher films
with animate Samurai armor in them. But this is this
is the one, Okay. Nathan goes on with more recommendations
such as brain Scan, underrated Edward Furlong flick that had
a big impact on me and my buddies when it
was okay, all smart speakers should be named Igor. Haven't

(19:19):
seen it, so I don't know what that refers to
another one. Nathan says, have you guys mentioned Oblivion? I
feel like I remember someone saying not the tom Cruise one,
but it didn't turn up when I searched the feed
it's from. And the credits are unbelievable. Only Charles Band
could bring together Catwoman, Lurch, the Gin, and Mr Sulu,

(19:40):
among others on what looks like I set borrowed from
Sliders Rob, I looked up the Oblivion cast. Okay, First
of all, the plot summary on IMDb goes like this.
On another planet which resembles the Old West, a die
hard pacifist is forced to re examine his ways after
an evil alien ba and It and his gang murder

(20:01):
his estranged sheriff father, take over his hometown and threaten
his friends. Planet West World, a man comes to embrace
the way of violence. Oh and looking at the cast list,
it is Divine. So uh. Nathan mentioned the Gin. I
think that would be a reference to Andrew Divoff. Am
I right about that? Uh? And then he also says Catwoman,

(20:24):
I believe that's the fact that Julie Newmar is in
this movie. Uh. He says Lurch, I think that's Carol.
I'm not sure how to say his name, Carol Stroychan
something like that. He's in there. Mr Sulu. Of course,
George de kay is in the movie, but it also
has Meg Foster and Isaac Hayes. What and what an assemblage? Yeah? Yeah,
I love Meg Foster and I've I've looked around for

(20:47):
reasons to to watch a Meg Foster movie. There are
a few sort of I've been that I've been eyeing,
But yeah, She's she always was a was a fun
screen presence for sure, and this movie at least the
first Oblivion him. I have seen this, but I watched
it with some friends and it was the Riff Track's
version of it, and so I remember it being, you know, funny,

(21:09):
but also that's a very You've got like two layers
of distraction there between you and the film, So I
can't say that I've really gotten in there and appreciated
it as a motion picture. Okay, a couple more thoughts
from Nathan. First of all, he has a comment for Seth.
He says, imagine Brainy Smurf's voice, saying, it depends on
if you're talking about Mirage or Archie. I have no

(21:31):
idea what that means, but Nathan says, okay, so here
Brainy Smurf's voice saying that, and you'll know how fifty
percent of my conversation started from fourth to seventh grade.
I was given teenage mutant Ninja Turtles number one, fifth
printing on my tenth birthday, and things have never been
the same by the way. I began as a Mikey
but rapidly turned Raphael alongside adolescence. This is referring back

(21:55):
to our discussion of which turtle did you identify? With?
Which one did you inevitably select act in the arcade?
Beat him up? And you talked to you. We talked
with you a little bit about this as well. I
think we were what all Leonardo's or did you have
a different pick? I thought we were all Donna tell O's. Oh,
I'm sorry, we're all Donna Tellos with the staff. Yes, yes,
somebody could read into that that we're just like boring nerds.
But I think the real issue is that the bow

(22:18):
staff is longer than the other weapons. We like our
personal space and uh and then the staff helps to
uh make sure that that personal state space is present
both on either side of our body and also above
our bodies. Finally, just to mention a few comments Nathan
makes about dog names. First off, he says that he
meant to right in after the Ark of the Covenant

(22:39):
episodes because he has a dog named Ichabod. And apparently
there is an origin story in the Hebrew Bible for
the name Ichabod. It's in the Book of Second Samuel,
where a woman gives birth to a child after she
learns that her husband and her father in law have
both been killed and the Ark of the Covenant has
been stolen by the Philistines, and she names the baby Ichabod,

(23:01):
which literally means something like no glory or where's the glory,
And Nathan says, in this context it could be taken
to mean God has abandoned us, which Nathan finds funny
as a dog's name, And I agree that is an
amusing thing to consider as the name of a dog.
But then Nathan also says, by the way, Joe, my
step dog is named Brody, a fact I previously found embarrassing,

(23:25):
but since rewatching Jaws last summer, I've been introducing him
as Chief Brodie. Not too good? Is it? I kink
that sounds good? That sounds good? Uh? I think he's
making it not too good as a chief reference. Oh yes, yes,
but as but taking it literally, I would say that
that's a good dog name. Oh yeah, you know, I

(23:46):
think with dogs and cats you you should name your
animals things like Edward. Um. But the Brodie feels appropriate.
Oh yeah. I don't know what the problem originally with
Brodie would have been. But Chief Brodie is a great
name for a dog, especially since I'm assuming you're associating
it with the Chief Brody in the movie played by
Roy Scheider, who is who is a lovable protagonist, versus

(24:09):
the Chief Brody in the book, who is as nasty
and detestable as every other character in the book. I
do not recommend reading Jaws. Yeah, Roy Scheider, though, that
would not be a good name for a dog. But
Brody good name for a dog. Quin good name for
a dog. Hooper, good name for a dog. Vaughan Meadows, Hendrix. Really,
these are all just dog names. Vaughn, my dog, Vaughn.

(24:32):
I named him after the mayor of Amity, wants to
keep the beaches open. Oh but no, that is actually
a good description of of my dog's personality. I'm sure
most dogs personality, you know, whatever dangers there are, they
want to keep the beaches open. That's true. That that's
the dog personality right anyway, Nathan says, thank you sincerely

(24:54):
for the years of service loyal listener. Nathan. Okay, we're
gonna wrap it up there. Yeah, we've have We have
a lot to chew on there, some great suggestions for
our different episode types, and hey, keep it coming. If
anyone out there has some feedback on recent episodes of
core Stuff you blow your Mind episodes, Artifact, Monster Fact,

(25:16):
Weird House Cinema, or even other listener mail episodes, just
right in, we'd love to hear from you. In the meantime,
Listener Mail publishes every Monday. That's where you can find
it in the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Nicholas Johnson. Once again, if you want to get in
touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other,

(25:36):
to suggest topic for the future, or just to say hi,
you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is
a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my
Heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app Apple Podcasts

(25:57):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.