Listener Mail: Before in the Beginning

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

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.
Hey 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 from the mail bag. If you are
a listener to the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast

(00:23):
and you've never gotten in touch before, why not write us.
You can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com. Anything is fair game, of course, always,
corrections are welcome. We have a correction at the top
of today's episode, but also just feedback thoughts, anything to
add on previous episodes, if you want to suggest a
topic for us to do in the future, if you

(00:44):
just want to share something that you think we would
find interesting, or if you just want to say hi,
tell us your story, tell us I don't know how
where when you found out about the show or what
you listen for. Any of that's fair game right in
contact at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Let's see.
So when we do get corrections, we try to put
them near the top of the listener mail episode. I've

(01:07):
got one about last week's listener mail where we made
a bird error. So well, if you don't mind, I'm
going to kick us off with the New Zealand bird
correction here. Ok okay, So we accidentally last week conflated
two different bird species. We were discussing the animal conservation
series called Last Chance to See, which was I think both,

(01:31):
I believe, both a book and maybe a series for
the BBC or something. But it had a couple of
runs and a later one of the runs here was
hosted by Mark Carwardine, who is a British zoologist who
wrote a book about whales that we consulted a lot
in our Gray Whale series, and also Stephen Fry. But
in this series there was a male specimen of an

(01:52):
endangered species of New Zealand bird which decided on camera
to start mating furiously with Mark Carwardine's head, and I
mentioned that I thought this was the cacapo. That was correct,
but one of us incorrectly connected it to a specie
to a species of bird that came up in another
older bit of Listener mail in which a bird attacked

(02:14):
a car in New Zealand and started dismantling it. I think,
like removing the gasket around the window or something. I
think there was also a mother in law in this story.
Do you remember more of the details, Rob, I do not,
did kind of a vague memory of this one. Anyway,
To clear up the confusion, we heard from Peggy on
Facebook who said, just listen to this week's mail. I
have to correct, as I hope some actual Kiwis will do.

(02:37):
The cacapo is a rare, flightless New Zealand parrot, of
which the most famous Sirocco has indeed humped a head
or two, I guess a human head. And then the
other bird is the Kia, a not so rare New
Zealand parrot that likes to tear cars apart. And then
finally Peggy says, maybe a weird extant New Zealand birds

(02:58):
episode is in order. Yeah, I mean the birds of
New Zealand are pretty fascinating. Um, yeah, these are. These
are both interesting species, same family, different genus. Uh. The
the CACAPOAH believe, is critically endangered, whereas the Kia is
just endangered. So yeah, I'd be up for any any

(03:20):
sort of avian exploration in future episodes. All right, Rob,
do you want to do this message from Angelo about
your artifact episode on the pinata. Yeah, this was a
response to an artifact episode talking about the pinata. Angelo
says Hi Robin Joe. I was listening to the artifact

(03:41):
episode on the pinata possibly having its origin in China
and making its way west to Spain than Mexico. What's
interesting to me is that growing up in the Philippines,
we have a combination of things related to the pinata.
The first is the use of a suspended clay pot
filled with candy and even coins at fiestas and birthday parties.
Kids are usually line folded and have to swing to

(04:01):
break the pot to release the goodies within. The other
is the parole, a Christmas lantern usually shaped as a star,
made of Japanese paper with bamboo. We don't try to
break these. Instead, they're lit up, originally with candles, but
now with electric lights. If tradition is true that these
were brought by Spanish colonizers to the Philippines and not

(04:22):
part of indigenous Filipino traditions, it's fascinating to think that's
something that the Chinese could have brought on a shorter
trip across the sea. Instead circumnavigated the globe to finally
end up in the Philippine Archipelago. Thanks for all the
great podcasts. You guys are always so informative and fun
to listen to on my commute. Angela, that is a
fascinating possibility if it is true in this case, Yeah,

(04:44):
it's it's amazing, an amazing example of how cultural memes
really make it around. Yeah, okay, So thank you for
the message, Angelo. So I'm going to do a message
about our series on t This one comes from a
listener named Joe. Joe spelled just Jo without the E.
In fact, they call themselves Joe without the E but

(05:08):
with some Tea for the purpose of this message. So
Joe without the E, but with some Tea, says dear
Joe and Robert. Hello, once again, I binged the Tea
episodes recently and would like to tell you about Malaysia's
national drink, Tataric. The name Tataric comes from ta, the

(05:32):
hockey and name for tea, while Tarik means pull in Malay.
Invented by the Indian Muslims on the Malay Peninsula after
World War Two, this drink is made with a strong
black tea and condensed milk. It's mixed by pouring it
rapidly and repeatedly between two mugs or containers, often at
great heights, and with some degree of showmanship. This produces

(05:56):
a lovely froth on top and ensures the drink is
very well mixed. It's a popular drink, suitable for all
hours of the day, and it's quite a treat to watch,
I guess, meaning watching the preparation if you've never seen
it before. And then Joe attaches a link to a
video of like a vendor in a marketplace doing these
tea pouring stunts that are true quite amazing. They seem

(06:19):
to defy physics. So I guess this dude in the
video is just so skilled at pouring between these metal
pictures that the only way I could think of just
to describe it is it looks more like a mass
of dough being stretched between the pictures than actually a
liquid pouring freely through the air, which though it is,

(06:40):
it is the latter. Another funny thing about this video
is that Leanne Rhymes is just blasting in the background
and that how do I Dream? Or how do I whatever?
And that's a song I associate so powerfully with getting haircuts.
When I was about twelve years old that it literally

(07:01):
makes me experience phantom smells. So like I'm watching the
video of the tea preparation and I'm smelling hairspray and
you know that burned smell of like a hair dryer
that's been used a lot. Interesting. Yeah, I didn't get
notes of that from this because I watched it with
the SoundOff, but it is an impressive feat of performance

(07:22):
beverage preparation. Wait, I just realized, I don't know if
this is a universal experience. I deeply associate like radio
soft rock hits with haircuts. Is that unique to me?
Or is that a common thing? Um? I guess it
depends on where you're getting your hair cut, right, I
mean yeah, different different salons are going to have a

(07:43):
different sort of musical ambiance going on. Yeah, I guess
it varies. I guess I went to a soft rock salon,
not just soft rock. It's like it's like Leanne rhymes,
that song Unbreak my Heart, say You Love Me Again?
All those are haircut songs to me anyway. Sorry, Let's
go back to Joe's message. They write there are tataric competitions.

(08:07):
While most tea lovers agree the whole leaves are better
for brewing. Tea. Dust is usually used to make tataric
because it produces a stronger flavor. Another tea related drink
you might be interested in is cham peng iced tea
plus coffee. The word chem means mix in Hokien. This

(08:27):
drink originates from Hong Kong, where it is called yinyong.
This name itself is a reference to Mandarin ducks, which
are called yun yong in Mandarin, and refers to how
two dissimilar things can come together in harmony. In Malaysia,
the ratio of tea to coffee is usually one to one,
whereas in Hong Kong it can be seven to three.

(08:48):
Although Malaysians use the phrase champing more often, It's Cantonese
name yin Yong is also well understood at most Chinese
coffee shops. Sarawak, located on the Borneo side of Malaysia,
has three layer tea. Here, it's usually called tacy Ping
or tacy Ping Special. It's made of black tea, the tay,

(09:11):
evaporated milk, the sea and palm sugar. The special the
word pang refers to ice. Palm sugar is carefully added
to the bottom of the cup, followed by evaporated milk
and then black tea. The drink is left unmixed, which
produces a three layered effect. You're supposed to mix it
with a straw before you drink, but you can choose

(09:32):
not to. Fascinating. Yeah, yeah, that parallels some other drinks,
alcoholic and non alcoholic in other cultures, where you have
some sort of a layering situation going on, and sometimes
it is frowned upon. Yes to stir those layers up,
Joe continues. The three layered version is most common in
the state, but there's a four layered version where pand

(09:53):
and sugar I believe you might know it as screw
pine is poured in after the palm sugar, creating a
green layer. The five layered version includes the panda sugar
and a layer of herbal grass jellies called ching chow
that float on top. In Malaysia, most shops will make
drinks with condensed milk by default, meaning that our drinks

(10:15):
here are all super sweet and super milky. To customize
your drink, you'll need our special code. You've got O
C and cosong O means no milk. C means use
evaporated milk instead of condensed, and cosong means no sugar.
It means empty in Malay. So if you ordered a
tao that would mean tea with no milk but yes sugar.

(10:39):
A Tao coo song you would get a tea no milk,
no sugar, whereas a t C cosong you would get
tea with evaporated milk no sugar. Hope you enjoyed reading
about these tea concoctions. Do give them a try if
you ever get the chance. As always, keep up the
great work, Live long and prosper. Joe without the E
but with some tea. Ah, this is awesome. Yeah, yeah,

(11:00):
I'd love to try some of these out. Sometime. I
will be on the lookout for a Malaysian tea house.
All right, here's one that comes to us from Dick.
Dick writes and then says, this anecdote was presented to
me as a coon many years ago. While I do
not presume to be enlightened, it has had a long

(11:22):
lasting effect on my worldview. I'm posting from memory, so
forgive me if I get it wrong. Quote. In the
olden times, four wealthy gentlemen met regularly to drink tea
and discuss lofty matters of philosophy and politics. Over the years,
they each competed to provide the best tea to their
guests as they visited each other's homes. As they were
wealthy beyond concern, vast fortunes were spent upon quietly outdoing

(11:47):
each other in this competition. They paid for ships to
be built to carry expeditions to the furthest corners of
the world to find the rarest tea. Hundreds of strong
men were employed just to carry the chests of gold
they spent over the decades. Finally, one day, when the
hosts serve the tea, the three guests cried out, you
have won. The competition is over. The tea is beyond compare.

(12:08):
We cannot imagine anything to equal it. Please tell us
where it comes from. The host said, this is called cha.
The peasants who work in my rice patties drink it
every day. Boom, all your pretensions laid waste. Yeah, I
mean that's how the coons work, right, They're supposed to
just flip the script on you. But I like, I mean,

(12:28):
this is a this is a good message. This is
I do like this one. I think it's absolutely true.
That's certainly not all, but many sort of quests for
nuances in minor variations of sensation, and you know, in
like a taste to domains, whether that's food or drink
or I don't know, audio fidelity or something. Things like

(12:51):
that are a lot of that might be kind of
placebo effect, and those differences aren't as great as the
people spending vast fortunes doing them might think they are. Yeah,
there are a number of different triggers that come into
play when when it comes to the valuely place and
even just a food product. You know, stuff like branding,
stuff like prior knowledge of where the food or part

(13:15):
or ingredients in the food or sourced from that sort
of thing, the experience and making it or preparing it.
You know, all these things come into play, and I
don't think that that that distracts from it at all.
If anything, it just adds the complexity of anything we
engage in. But this particular con also touches on a
very common trend you see throughout the world, and that
is the upper classes discovering something that the working class

(13:40):
does and then co opting it for their own enjoyment.
So it works on several levels. Yes, this tea has
the taste of authenticity. Now, all right, let's see this
next message comes from Chuck five. It's from the Vault

(14:02):
episode on the three pupiled eye. Chuck five says, greetings,
always love the show. I hope my writing in means
more than flattery. Two notes on your show on multiple
pupils or irises. The first is the tradition of a
Japanese luck doll called the Druma. When you buy one,
only one pupil is painted. You make a wish, and

(14:24):
when that wish comes true, you paint. In the second,
and the purpose of the Druma is complete. Now, in
a second note I'm not going to read directly, Chuck
mentions a specific tattoo artist in Tokyo who does a
lot of dragon designs. Apparently, says this person paints or
tattoos the eyes of the pupils last when making a dragon.

(14:46):
And then finally, Chuck five says, bonus, this is just
my observation. But going back to your fear of the
Void episode, I find it curious that the thing that
brings these depictions to life, or that gives them souls,
is actually the absence of something the pupil, which is
an aperture or whole. It makes me think of the
saying the eyes are the window to the soul. A

(15:08):
window is a whole, or at least a clear barrier
that lets you see into a hole. So what's inside
and not seen is what is mystical or poignant. Cheers Chuck.
Five mm. I'd kind of forgotten this about Daruma dolls,
but yeah, they're very these are these are very interesting
little artifacts. And also just the idea of the painting

(15:29):
of the eye makes the thing real. I can't remember
if we got into this at all discussed in these episodes,
but you know, this brings to mind various I believe
Chinese folk tales about magic paint brushes or individuals with
a power to bring paintings to life, And at least
in some of these accounts, one can prevent the painting

(15:50):
from coming to life by not painting the eye. But
once the eye is painted, well, then it will take
on life allow its own. Oh, it's like the left
inscription that animates the golem. Oh yeah, yeah, the finishing touches. Yeah,
all right, here's one that comes to us from Chuck.
This is a different Chuck. There's not Chuck five. This

(16:11):
is just Chuck no number on this one, no version number.
Chuck writes in this and says, dear Rob, Joe, and JJ,
Hello again. I hope all of you are well. Thanks
once more for the informative and dry, lee hilarious episodes.
I stand by the sentimental comments I made about stuff

(16:31):
to blow your mind when you graciously read a previous
email of mine back in early January, about which I
was surprised and humble to be included in listener mail.
I'm writing this time primarily because if you're Washing of
the Waters episodes, you had a brief aside about the
custom of communal Roman public toilets, and now odd that
would be to our modern sensibilities. Romans doing one's business

(16:51):
while doing one's business was shown to humorous effect in
the first season of the Spartacus TV series. However, I
can share that I have unfortunately been part of having
to use essentially a communal line of toilets, and it
is a strange, awful experience. While it may not be
done anymore. When I went to Navy boot camp in
the nineteen nineties, our eighty person training company all had

(17:13):
to use the bathroom at the same approved time between
other training exercises and orientation lessons. The line of ten
or so toilets had no doors and minimal barriers between,
and a leader of the company had to stand watch
while the other recruits went. We found out later that
this was done to break down personal barriers, remind the
recruits that privacy was a luxury, and to prevent recruits from,

(17:34):
let's say, smuggling items like drugs or food on or
in their bodies. Appreciate private toilets, folks, but we should
pause to I guess, appreciate that and let that. Yeah. Yeah,
that sounds like you would break down barriers. Yeah, done,
I appreciate them. Okay, Chuck continues. Secondly, I wanted to

(17:56):
comment that I, being a kid who loved mythology and
monster movies, did see Clash of the Titans and a
packed movie theater as a nine year old kid in
nineteen eighty one. I'm also pretty sure I saw the
movie with my best friend, also nine, with no parents
around at all. I can definitely attest that the Medusa's
scene was absolutely terrifying to everyone in the theater. Hundreds
of people held their collective breadth as the creature hunted

(18:17):
down each hapless Greek red shirt. I had nightmares about
Medusa for months. That scene, followed up with the Calaboss fight,
was a fantastic one two punch. Absolutely agree. The Kracking
fight at the end was almost anticlimactic. After that, my
best friend loved the movie so much he decided he
wanted to be a fantasy artist. After that, he's been
illustrating comics and providing art for fantasy games for years now.

(18:40):
Oh wow, that's cool story. I also agree about the
anticlimacticness of the Kracking confrontation. Yeah, though at least it's
a different sort of confrontation and it's over pretty quickly.
But but yeah, there's no being that Medusa fight. And
then Chuck says, lastly, I can't remember the exact context,
but it was an episode of Weird House Cinema regarding

(19:02):
I think some insane character changing jobs. But Rob said
the hilarious phrase quote, maybe this is where I'll apply myself.
This is a perfect T shirt slogan. May I use it?
And if so, may I get your T shirt sizes
so I can send you your own. Ha Keep up
the great work and take care It's fine with me
if you use it. I don't know what your opinion is, Rob,

(19:22):
but you will never take my T shirt size. Yeah,
still feel free to put this on a T shirt. Sincerely,
Chuck from San Diego. Yeah. I was recently in San Diego.
Really loved spending a week in that town. I've only
been there overnight one time, but it did seem like
a cool place. I'd like to spend more time there. Yeah.
All right, we got one more message about weird House cinema.

(19:44):
This comes from Daniel, subject line Child of Peach. Hi,
this is Daniel from Australia. Did you notice that the
music featured in the clip you play from this episode?
I guess from Child of Peach is from the nineteen
eighty six album Fourth Rendezvous by Jean Michel Jarre. Is

(20:09):
that how you say his name? I believe it's jar Oh,
I definitely. I definitely had to look it up, okay,
Jean Michel jar I wonder was this used with permission?
I doubt it. I remember that the old Japanese TV
show Monkey Magic in the late seventies and voice dubbed
in English, used mini samples from well known and lesser

(20:30):
known movies, and I found this distracting as my mind
went straight out of the story and into the movie.
The sound effects originally came from Cheers Daniel, great catch, Daniel.
I didn't recognize Jar's work in this film, But now
that you pointed out yet, this totally matches up with
some of what I've read about unlicensed use of music
and other Hong Kong and Thaiwanese films of this era.

(20:52):
I know Master the Flying Guillotine instantly comes to mind
as a film that a lot of fun has a
great soundtrack that, if memory serves, is probably not legit.
I think there's a lot of cool crowd rock that's
sampled and used in that film, and I don't know
that there was any kind of licensing involved in that.
I was also reading at some point in the past

(21:13):
year about a particular Taiwanese film that I think just
straight up uses some Morriconey Carpenter tracks from the thing.
Wait didn't somebody also write in to tell us that
The Thrilling Bloody Sword was using music that's either sounded
a lot like or was directly taken from a Japanese
TV show that sounds familiar. But I don't remember it specifically. Yeah,

(21:37):
it's my understanding that this sort of thing, you know, happened.
But but yeah, I didn't catch this. Um, I'm not
super familiar with all of jars work. I've I've definitely
listened to some of his releases, and his father scored
some pretty big movies. I think he scored Eyes without
a Face oh wow, but did not write the Billy

(21:57):
Idol song. I don't think so now. But but but again,
I'm not sure of all his various collaborations over the years,
but I don't think John Michelle Jar has actually scored
a film. I was looking this up like I had
this false memory in my head that he had scored something,
But he has not to my knowledge. I could be
wrong on that, but I don't think he's He's ever

(22:19):
really gotten into scoring of films like his father. Anyway,
I love it when listeners catch things like this, so
oh yeah, so yeah, great, here, Daniel, you know, we
had another. I don't remember who pointed this out, as
may have been on our discord, but Thrilling Bloody Sword
is apparently being remastered like that one is actually going
to come out in an even better looking form at

(22:40):
some point in the future. I don't know if I
would want it, yea quote improved from the version I have. Yeah,
I know. It's that you get kind of attached to
the to the flaws, right, It's kind of like, do
you dare restore a classic org of art and you know,
will the will the restored piece feel more magical or
will some of the aura be degraded in this transformation.

(23:03):
I believe it's Air four four four four is the
company that's going to put it out. Yeah, with thrilling,
bloody sword. The grime and the hard baked subtitles are
definitely part of the appeal. But maybe that's just because
that's the way I'm used to it. So yeah, yeah,
I'm I'm excited to check it out and then maybe
again somebody will get around to restoring pot people if

(23:25):
you work in film restoration. The one that I would
love a really, really great Crisp New take on is
a Ship of Monster Is. It seems like there's no
really good disc out there of it, and it's it's
crying out for a restoration. Yeah, I mean, it's kind
of the story of some of these movies. It's like,
sometimes sadly, the better footage is lost, and there's just

(23:46):
doesn't exist anymore. But there have been plenty of spectacular
stories of supposedly lost of footage being found. Santo and
the Treasure of Dracula being one such example, where they
didn't think they had had any other foot to fall
back on, and then they found found something in the
vault somewhere, and so it's all the light of day again.
All right? Should we wrap it up there for today? Yeah,

(24:08):
let's go and wrap it up. This has been listener
mail for this week. We do these on Mondays and
the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed core episodes
on two season Thursdays. On Wednesdays we do a short
form artifact or monster fact, and on Fridays we set
aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird
film on Weird ou Cinema. Huge thanks to our audio
producer jj Pauseway. If you would like to get in

(24:28):
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 to Blow Your
Mind is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from
my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or

(24:51):
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.