July 21, 2020 • 49 mins
Once again, Robert and Joe call forth the mailbot to read and discuss listener mail in this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My
Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. In
Today we're bringing you some listener mail. It's been a
little bit since we did that, so we're broadcasting from
our respective laundry rooms and closets here. But we're getting
(00:26):
back in touch with you now that you've gotten in
touch with us, and to help us out here today
our mail bought Carney. Oh, he's gotten into a mess
of trouble. It seems that Carney has gotten into his
mind that he should create AI generated fireworks displays. And boy,
he can really mark off chain up a mess here, Andy,
he's sure can. I mean, he was always a little
(00:47):
bit explosive in the best of times, but now he
has actual explosives just his His entire fuselage is just
stuffed with Roman candles. Yeah. So it is with great
delicate see that we must remove your messages from from
Carneys bowels today. But yeah, it's all I want to
do when I reiterate just at the top of this
(01:09):
episode that it is always great to hear from everyone
out there, to hear from listeners. Uh. We we don't
certainly don't have time to respond to everything, and we
don't have time on the show to feature everything, but
we do read everything that comes in. Uh. We love
it when you provide additional inside or experience related to
different topics that we've covered, and when we do cover
(01:31):
quite a few topics that I think touch on the
universal human experience as well. Exactly right. But also we
we cover things that get into the very specific human experience,
for example, the number of people who have jumped out
of an airplane and gotten in touch with us to
tell us what that's like. So should we start with
this email from Kelly here, Let's do it. Kelly writes, Hey, guys,
(01:55):
I just started listening to your podcast recently, and I've
been shuffling around different episode topics that looked interesting. I
had to listen to one about surviving a ten thousand
footfall as I'm a professional skydiver and I knew you
would definitely bring up a lot of skydiving in it.
I know it's almost a year old, but oh well,
you ask what terminal velocity feels like. My best description
(02:15):
that I tell tandem students who are worried about that
belly and the throat feeling is that it is more
accurately comparable to the feeling of sticking your hand out
the window on the freeway. You feel supported resistance, and
when you exit a plane, you are going the same
speed as the plane, so you don't get that free
fall feeling you would when jumping off a static object. Also,
(02:37):
the way you orient your body is like when you're
surfing your hand like a wave out the window. When
you point your finger down, you feel you're slicing the
air and up gives you left. Uh. Fun fact, wingsuits
can slow down to about thirty miles per hour and
actually go up when doing the maneuver called a flare,
(02:57):
which is what we do to slow down in a
wing suit before deploying our parachutes and would be my
go to move right before impact if I had no
parachute out. My friends survived a wingsuit base jumping accident
with no parachute out when he went into the trees
and took out a thirty meter line of dense forest,
and another survived with nothing out while jumping off a
(03:19):
three and fifty foot bridge. He landed in the river
below and swam himself to the beach with a ton
of broken bones. But this kind of luck is almost
entirely unheard of. Love your show and I'm so happy
to have discovered it. If you ever have any skydiving questions,
feel free to shoot me a message. Thanks. Kelly. Wow
swamed ashore with broken bones that gives me the willies. Yeah,
(03:41):
I found the interesting the mention of wingsuits, And I
don't remember if we got into wingsuits much on that
episode at all. I don't think so, but it's it's
a topic that I wrote an article for How Stuff
Works about wingsuits ages ago, and then the I want
to say, the most recent World Science Festival in New York,
which would have been the twenty nineteen one, there was
(04:04):
a there was a talk about about the human brain
and extreme sports and like people who do extreme things
like you know, a free climbing and wingsuit flying, like
what's going on in their mind? And there was at
one point one of the experts was just getting into
the just the statistics of wingsuits and wingsuit technology and
(04:26):
sort of like the different you know, ups and downs
of how dangerous it is. It was really quite quite fascinating.
If anyone out there is interested in checking out a
video of that presentation. It was titled the Science of
Extreme Behavior, the Line between Courageous and Crazy. You can
find it on on the YouTube channel for the World
Science Festival. It's it's really fascinating, all right. Do you
(04:51):
want to take a look at this next email about
my interview with bart Ermine on his book Heaven and Hell. Yes,
this one comes from our listener Ben. Ben says, hello
from London, Robert and Joe. I just finished listening to
the Heaven and Hell episode and wanted to share a
few cool tidbits in the same vein. I studied classics
at university and as a result got to read some
(05:13):
very cool texts in the original Latin and ancient Greek.
While I only read a bit of the Bible. I
thought it was interesting how the first sentence, and I
think this is the first sentence of the Gospel of
John was in the beginning was the word in English?
But Ben says that in Greek it is in the
beginning was reason. And I'm gonna try to pronounce this
(05:34):
in ark in whole logos. I could theoretically get behind
that statement a lot more. Uh, And yeah, I've I've
actually looked into this before there there is this question
about how exactly to translate that statement at the beginning
of the Gospel of John. But yeah, reason and the word, uh,
these concepts are are sort of synonymous and linked in
(05:55):
ancient Greek. Oh that's that's good. Yeah, because they in
the beginning there was the word. I remember being con
used by that as a as a child, I'm like,
what do you saying? You're saying the Bible came first,
Like what what do you mean? There was their words first, Like,
this doesn't make any sense. But logos reason being first,
that makes a lot more sense. Okay, and Ben goes
on another possibly apocryphal story I heard, which the Barberman
(06:17):
episode reminded me of, is the origin of the saying
it doesn't matter in Iota, as I heard it at
the Council of Nicea in three the early Church fathers
were debating the nature of Jesus, whether he was like
the substance of God or of the same substance as God,
which in Greek the difference would be homoros or homoios. Clearly,
(06:41):
this decision had massive ramifications for the future development of
in schisms within Christianity, and as you can see one
iota mattered an awful lot. So the difference there is
the difference between an r and an eye in that
word um. But this was like a hugely significant theological dispute,
And so I don't know if this is the origin
(07:01):
of that phrase. It doesn't matter one iota. I know.
The idea of an iota of difference also has roots
in the Bible itself, in the Gospel of Matthew, where
where in the in the Telling of Matthew, Jesus says
that you know, not one iota of the law will
pass away, often translated as not one jot or tittle.
I think it just means like one of the smallest
(07:21):
possible markings in writing. And this is making the point
that the author of the Gospel of Matthew particularly wants
to make, which is that Jesus is the fulfillment of
the Jewish law. But this ties into my conversation with
Bart Irmin because one of the things that Bart and
I talked about was how, especially in later development in
the Church, like in in later Christian centuries, UH, there
(07:45):
was much more fierce debate over differences in theology that
seemed very small to us that mattered a lot to them,
like debates over exactly what type of substance the incarnation
of Christ was, Did Jesus have a belly button? That
sort of thing. Yeah, so Ben goes on. The last
thing I wanted to share was how great the Greek
(08:06):
neo Platonist philosopher plot in Nous was and how important
his thoughts were to the development of Christian concepts. His
main work was the a Needs, elements of which shaped
the Christian idea of the Trinity and the thorny issue
of how Jesus could be both man and God at
the same time. Well worth a read if you can
find a good translation. That's it. Great episode. I love
(08:28):
all that stuff, even though I'm a pragmatic secular atheist
in the Judeo Christian monotheistic sense. Thanks, stay safe, keep
making great episodes. Been well, Thank you, Ben, Yes, indeed,
and you know, I'm I'm hoping we'll hear from some
more listeners on this topic, because I know we have
a lot of listeners out there who are either you know,
to varying degrees and an active number of of of
(08:51):
one of the faiths affected by the ideas that were
discussed in that episode, or you have, you know, a
past with those with with the chures that are attached
to those traditions. Um, I feel like, you know, a
lot of us have some insight to share on just
sort of the general ideas regarding hell and heaven. They're
wrapped up in our cultures. Yeah, exactly. I think one
(09:14):
point that Bart made that I think is absolutely true
is even if you are not personally Christian or Jewish,
the ideas of the Bible still have been massively influent,
fluential in shaping the culture that we live in here
and you know, in the United States and in Europe especially. Yeah.
You know, in our recent episode that we recorded, I
don't know if it's out yet as of this publication,
(09:34):
but we're talking about helmets and the idea of Viking
helmets with horns showing up in in cartoons when we're
a child, and that just kind of gets burnt into
your brain. And then when you later learned that Vikings
did not have hornet helmets, it doesn't matter because you
still have that that idea knocking around your head. With
heaven and hell. It's the same thing, like how many
(09:54):
different cartoons, how many different you know, films, the young
of viewers would have seen ended up utilizing, you know,
an angel and devil having in hell of motifs and symbolism.
Isn't it strange how many cartoons show characters going to Hell.
I remember that happening all the time in Looney Tunes
(10:15):
and so yeah, oh and in Disney cartoons like I
think Pluto the Dog went to Hell Hell run by
cats for messing with cats or something. I strongly remember
images from that one because I had some really diabolical content. Um,
but yeah, I digress. Uh, well, should we go onto
(10:38):
this next email we got about fireworks from Kelsey? Yes,
so when I can tell that Carney is particularly excited
about this one, all right, um, Kelsey rides Hello. I
was delighted to see the topic of your show today
as my father has worked in the fireworks industry for
about twenty years now, so it's a place near and
dear to my heart. In fact, when I was in
elementary school, my first science fair project was a detailed
(11:00):
breakdown of how display fireworks the mortar kind you described
near the end of the show are made, complete with
models that I made from actual shell casings with considerable
help for my dad, who was managing one of the
last remaining fireworks manufacturing plants in the US at the time.
I don't think the judges quite knew what to do
with an earnest third grader explaining how to make a bomb,
(11:21):
but needless to say, my physics space project about leverage
the next year won me more accolades. At any rate.
I wanted to write in because there are actually people
out there who make fireworks in their backyards. As it were,
you do need to have a fair amount of space
to legally slash safely store large amounts of black powder,
but otherwise the process of making fireworks isn't terribly difficult
(11:43):
or even that unsafe, so long as you follow some
basic rules for handling, disposal, etcetera. I'm not actually sure
what the exact laws are surrounding this sort of thing,
but I know my dad has plenty of industry friends
who have small workshops where they can play around and
develop new formulas. When I was younger, the Pyro club
my dad belonged to would rent out a field occasionally
so that people could bring their stuff and show it off.
(12:07):
Some cool, less well known firework things. Until Tepic, a
city north of Mexico City. They have an annual fireworks
festival that involves two incredibly harrowing events. Number One, they
construct paper mache bulls which are worn sort of over
the head and shoulders, um or places on some kind
or placed on some kind of a wheeled cart. And
(12:28):
then they strap a bunch of fireworks to those and
essentially do a sort of running of the bulls in
the town square. But you know, on fire? WHOA that's this?
This reminds me of the story by the Pyromancers of
England about creating St. George and the Dragon. But they're
full of fireworks exactly. Uh so that's interesting. We didn't
get into that that is much. But I wonder, like
(12:50):
to what mean when you're dealing with the burning of
things in effigy um and creating works of sculpture that
incorporate fire like that. That seems to play a in
the history of pyrotechnics as well. Anyway. Um. She goes
on to share a second example too. They create these
beautiful fireworks fireworks driven automatons, which they then rig up
(13:12):
on these huge towers. I believe each crew gets their
own tower, and it's a competition to see which is
the best. My dad has attended this event several times,
though some years ago now, and apparently if one of
the automatons gets stuck, guys will just scale the burning
tower to give the recalcitrant part a little nudge and
get things going again. And with all that knowledge in mind,
(13:33):
I was unsurprised to find, upon googling for images that
apparently Mexico has a huge problem with firework fatalities and
an explosion until topic killed a bunch of people as
recently as two thousand and eighteen. So that's very unfortunate,
because all the pictures my father took of the festival
in the nineties were absolutely amazing. I'll have to see
if I can get him to scan some and pass
(13:54):
them along. Meanwhile, on the island of Malta, probably because
they have something to prove, they make the apps huge
fireworkshells you'll see below, and she includes some images and
these just look like they they're as big as a person.
They look like massive, like oxygen tanks, absurd gigantic. She continues,
(14:14):
why so big? I don't know. They too have a
yearly fireworks festival, which I would love to attend at
some point. Anyway, if you have any specific questions, I'm
more than happy to pick my dad's brain for answers
and has always keep up the good work, Kelsey. Oh,
thank you, Kelsey. Well, it is very sad to hear
that that in the in the Mexican festival, that there
would be fatalities involved with it. But it does make
(14:35):
me wonder, like, um, is it or is it not
part of the appeal of the fireworks that they're dangerous?
Do you think, like generally like is that sort of
part of what people like about them? Perhaps? You know,
there's that that definite feeling of of of lighting the
firework and then in the few starts burning and you
have to run away really quick quickly, and then dare
(14:57):
to look back and see what happens, and there is
always the possibility that it's going to fall over and
you know, blast something it's not supposed to blast, or
that the fire will uh well will fizzle out, the
fuse will stop burning, and you'll have to figure out, Okay,
how am I gonna go up there and check on
it without blasting my face off? So yeah, I think
the danger is a part of it. Um, though of
(15:20):
course the danger is the worst part of it too, right, Well,
obviously it's it's terrible when people actually get hurt or killed. Yeah,
and then of course, on top of that, if you're
dealing with irresponsible use of fireworks, I mean, that's that's
even worse. Using fireworks in areas that um that they're
you know, suffered from trout and they're not legally allowed
using fireworks in a way that is irresponsible or dangerous
(15:42):
to yourself or others. I mean, I've heard horrible stories
about that sort of thing before. Yes, So again, while
it is a fascinating topic, please do be aware of
the dangerous and please don't go messing around doing dangerous
stuff because of an email we read on this show. Yes,
all right, Well, on that note, we're gonna take a
quick break, but when we come back, more listener mail.
Thank you, thank you. All right, we're back. So this
(16:08):
next message in our listener Mail episode comes from Brian.
Brian is writing about our episodes on the invention of
the book. Brian says, Dear Robert and Joe, I've been
a listener to Stuff to Blow your mind for many years,
often thought of sending feedback your way related to previous
podcasts but never got around to it. However, while bicycle
(16:29):
writing and listening to Your Books podcast the first episode
through a sudden Seattle downpour, I decided to send in
some comments specifically related to the question you posed about
what actually constitutes a book. Several months ago, I was
introduced to a scholar by the name of Lynn Kelly,
interviewed by Sean Carroll on his Mindscape podcast. A science writer, researcher,
(16:51):
and educator, she became interested in studying preliterate oral cultures,
beginning with the Aboriginal culture of her native Australia and
eventually including various African nomadic cultures Incas and pueblos of
the America's. As a result of this research, she developed
a very intriguing theory which literally blew my mind literally
(17:11):
is dangerous when I first heard her describe it. She
has published an academic paper on the theory, as well
as a general interest book entitled The Memory Code. Her
theory suggests that preliterate oral cultures utilized the immense human
capacity for memory to encode many books worth of information
in their brains in a manner similar to how modern
(17:33):
memory champions do today. The ancient memory techniques ranged from
performance triggers and this would include stories, songs and dances,
to loci triggers, landscape features, physical space and memory palaces,
and tactile triggers beads, shells and knots. The common element
through all these techniques, however, is the brain's power of association,
(17:56):
particularly when associating odd, absurd on usual images with what
you want to remember. This capacity seems to scale logarithmically
as opposed to linearly, which allows those skilled in these
techniques to encode vast amounts of information in their memories. Additionally,
her theory suggests the purpose of some Neolithic architecture, for
(18:17):
example Stoneheinge, Chaco Canyon, Machu Pichu, etcetera, was more related
to essential memory retention than to religious based rituals more
commonly associated with these sites. Of particular relation to your
book definition question would be the shape and tactile techniques
Lynn describes and shows in her Memory Code book. These
(18:38):
ranged from the elaborate rope knots used by the incas
two small handheld pieces of wood or stone carvings, hides
with shells or other small objects attached, somewhat similar to
the modern Brail alphabet, but with a capacity to encode
orders of magnitude more information per page than a modern book.
Certainly a pre alphabet form of in formation storage, and
(19:01):
one that has sharing limitations but does meet many of
the criteria of more modern books. Anyway, keep up the
great information sharing work that your team does with these podcasts.
Best Brian Well, Brian, I, I've heard other theories before
about different ideas about how memories were encoded in in
preliterate times and in preliterate cultures, and I don't think
(19:22):
I'd come exactly across this theory before, but this is
an interesting possibility, like the idea that structures in the
environment and different types of trinkets and objects held in
the hand or on the body could essentially be tools
used to aid in free association through memory to retain
large amounts of information that would be hard to remember
(19:43):
on its own. Yeah, that's a great point, and it
reminds me too of just the idea of say a
Christian cathedral, a Catholic cathedral, or uh, say it to
Tibetan Buddhist temple. These are spaces that are, in their
own way, a kind of text. They're about um, recording
information and conveying ideas to the person who is present,
(20:07):
Like when you're inside of a cathedral. You know, certainly
just the architecture of the space is supposed to inform
a certain message about the the nature of the cosmos
or the the grandeur of the divine. And then likewise
you'll see examples of sculpture or art that are about
making some sort of difficult theological concept palpable to the
(20:30):
human mind, like something explaining the nature of the Trinity,
that sort of thing. And likewise, in in Tibetan Buddhism especially,
we have some very you know, advanced sort of spiritual
technologies and play there. Um I've I've read that that
is that that's often the intent of some of these
more elaborate and to many Western eyes, you know, mysterious
(20:50):
pieces of art. It's about conveying uh, theological information to
the viewer and helping and even serving as a teaching implement.
All right, let's uh open up another listener mail here.
This one comes to us from Danny. Danny writes in
and says, Hi, Robert and Joe, thank you for all
(21:11):
the content you provide weekend and week out. It's comforting
to have you in my ear while running or mowing
the lawn or the dreaded commute. I'm writing for a
few reasons, all related to your recent episodes on invention
regarding invented words. Firstly, I've been trying to learn Japanese
as of late, and I was fascinated when I came
across a lesson that taught me the word itto uh,
(21:33):
which is a filler word that translates to um in English.
I'd never thought about it before, but apparently we learn
all of these words that I just thought were basic
sounds that humans made from birth. I always assumed that
when a person is thinking about a topic or or
stumped for a bit, they just naturally say the word mm.
But I guess the word that comes out of our
(21:54):
mouth depends on the language we learn. This newfound discovery
prompted me to look into it, and it appears all
languages are full of these filler words. Maybe this was
obvious to most people, but I was not aware. Yeah,
this is an interesting thing, and it's not just words.
I mean, it can be just pure vowel sounds we
I think in English, English speakers very often tend to
(22:15):
default to the schwa sound, because that's sort of a
rest sound in in the English language, but in other
languages you might rest on a different vowel sound. So
where we would say not even um, but uh, other
languages might be more likely to say a or oh.
They continue somewhat similarly. You guys spoke about on a
(22:37):
monopeia and the word yeat. I don't know how you
really classify something as having an on amonopeia equality to it,
but I can get behind yeat. I find a lot
of our sound words are just kind of sort of
related to how they actually sound, but it's not by
any means concrete. Does something really bang or slam? Or
are we just used to the words associated with those sounds.
(22:59):
A dog says wow in English but now now in
Spanish and black in Afrikaans? Does it really sound like
one over the other or are we just used to
these words? Or maybe animal sounds are not supposed to
be on a monopeas and I am way off anyways,
I can support heat well. I think you're getting into
the territory there of like idiophones that we talked about
(23:21):
in a previous episode, where something suggests a kind of
sound association even though it's not based on anything audible. Yeah, lastly,
I wanted to get to your thoughts on women in
a word or phrases lifespan it can officially means something
different than its original definition. I think of the term
begs the question. In college I had a philosophy professor.
(23:41):
They would absolutely lose it when somebody used the term
begs the question incorrectly. In classical rhetoric, the term refers
to an informal fallacy that occurs when an argument's premises
assume the truth of the conclusion instead of supporting it.
An example could be quote, everybody wants this new Pokemon
toy because it is the hottest toy this holiday season. However,
(24:03):
nowadays it seems that when people use the term they
are simply raising and suggesting a question. So, although I
understand what my philosophy teacher was getting at, at what
point can we just say, Hey, look, this phrase means
something else now, so get on board. Anyway, Uh, this
got a little longer than I expected. I just love
the idea of words and languages and how we have
different ways of communicating. Thanks for speaking about this subject
(24:26):
and all of the other topics you cover. I truly
appreciate it. Danny Um. Of course, of course, brings to
mind the frequent misuse of literally. Yeah, did this come
up in an earlier email. I think it did. We
don't want to shame you too much for it. Uh No,
I don't even know if we're allowed to shame anyone
for it now, because apparently definitions are shifting to to
(24:47):
the point where you can legally from a grammatical sense,
you can legally say something is literally something and not
mean literally. You can say he literally took his head off,
or I literally wanted to puke, and it doesn't mean
you literally did that, and it means figuratively. Yeah, I mean. So,
there are obviously these different schools of how you should
(25:10):
approach the use of words and phrases like that. Like
there's the prescriptivist school, which says, you know, here's what
it means in established you know, canons, and and you
should stick to that original meaning. And then I guess
there's like the usage school that says, you know, however,
if if people understand what you mean, and then what's
the problem. And I do I have sympathies with both camps.
(25:31):
I guess I will say against the prescriptivist school that
just says, you know, you need to use a word
or phrase to mean what it's always meant. I don't know.
I mean it's embarrassing when you realize how many arguments
full of passionate intensity really in the income down to
people arguing about what a word or phrase means. That's
just a mind meltingly tedious. So based on that, I
(25:53):
think language should be evaluated on the basis of its
power to communicate. Will the listener understand what you intend
to say? Then? Again, at the same time, I have
to admit, like I have a gut level reaction against
that kind of thing when I see literally used not
to mean literally, especially when I catch myself doing it,
I just feel like, oh, yeah, it's I always come
(26:16):
back to like a stand up bit that David Cross
had about it about how when you use literally wrong,
it's like, this is not just incorrect usage, it's it's
the the opposite of what is supposed to mean. Um.
I think that the example he used was, it's it's
not like when you say pen ultimate and you mean ultimate. Uh.
You know, I can easily get kind of worked up
over it myself. But at the same hand, I agree
(26:38):
that it's like like language is going to change over time,
and we can't you know, we can't get mad when
it does change. Yeah, I agree. You can't fix it.
You can't keep it stuck in place. That language has
always changed. It's actually a relatively modern invention, like the
notion that words that you must use words and grammar
in a certain way. I mean, if you go back
(27:00):
and read ancient texts, they do not follow consistent rules
of grammar and stuff like. It's it's more usage based,
it's more fluid. It's just like are you going to
be understood? Though, I will admit I I also this
exact same thing about your philosophy teacher with begs the
question That one gets to me sometimes I know exactly
what people mean. I don't. I try not to hound
(27:22):
to people about it because people are gonna understand what
you mean when you say begs the question, you mean
it raises the question. But yeah, I've got that like
stupid rhetoric brain where it's like this actually is a fallacy.
Is the name of a fallacy? You're insulting somebody if
you say they beg the question. But anyway, I I can,
I can purge my rhetoric brain for a bit. All right, well,
(27:46):
what do we have next here? All right, looks like
we got a couple from uh Anna about our Slayer episode.
Oh yeah, this is when we put out a list
of Halloween episodes from past October, the Haftober playlist. Yes,
uh so this one goes as follows. Hi, Robert and Joe.
(28:09):
In a recent Vault episode, you were discussing instinctive fears
of spiders and snakes. I live in Australia, here, where
there are a lot of spiders and snakes. There's a
very common spider called a Huntsman spider. They're very large
harry spiders. Although many people were afraid of these spiders,
there's also a common reaction to them that is something
like affection. A common nickname for them is Harry Huntsman.
(28:31):
They seem to like to live near people, like in
houses and cars. Often, if someone is showing up around
their house, they will show them into a room where
there is a Huntsman on the wall. Someone who is
unfamiliar with the area might point at it nervously and say,
there is a huge spider up there. The person whose
room it is will often say something like oh, that's
just Harry. Here in Australia, the spiders that are deadly
(28:53):
are much smaller than huntsman spiders. The part that is
scary about huntsmand spiders is the way they move. Somehow
they seem to scuttle and glide at the same time.
In fact, huntsmen have caused death, but because of the
fear and not the spider themselves. Spiders like to hide
in cars. Sometimes they will hide under the sun visor
or in the rear view mirror. The spider will one
(29:14):
across the windscreen and someone will crash their car as
a fear reaction. People have also been known to take
drastic action in trying to get rid of one of
these spiders in the house, and sometimes people hurt themselves
as a part of these actions. If I may add
um this, this has a real poetic quality to it
that I'm loving. There's like a I feel like I'm
(29:36):
I'm reading poetry. It's got a heck of a rhythm. Yeah,
we have a lot of snakes here. Generally the best
idea is just to leave them alone. I think knowledge
is the best way to combat fear. Knowing which snakes
are dangerous and which are not and what to do
when you see a snake is helpful. Secondly, I know
you have mentioned that in most myths about snakes, they
(29:56):
are the enemy. One exception to this is Australian indig myths.
One of the common myths among Australian Indigenous groups is
the rainbow serpent. In this myth, the rainbow serpent is
actually a creator. The rainbow serpent is something like a
creator God. As it moved through the land, it carves
out the landscape of Australia. This is my memory of
(30:16):
the story we were told in school, so it might
be a bit simplistic or inaccurate. I hope you are
staying safe here in Australia. I feel like we are
feeling something like disaster fatigue. We have had drought, terrible
fires and heat waves than storms than the current pandemic.
Australia has always handled this well, but is still tough
for many people. Just when we wanted people to go
(30:38):
and visit rural areas to recover from the fires and drought,
the lockdowns happened. So many people are really struggling. Anyway,
I have gone on for too long. Now keep up
the good work. Anna, you know, often we hear from
Australians who sort of characterize it as the land of
spiders and snakes. It's sort of like the venom Continent.
But yeah, I really appreciate the spirit of gentle, illness
(31:00):
and grace with which you're approaching these venomous creatures. Yeah.
And I also have to say I really like the
poetic cadence of of this particular email. This one is
a real pleasure to read now, Anna. I also wrote
in in another email and sent along um photograph, writing
I enjoyed re listening to your episode about monster Slayers.
You were talking about St. George and how image is
(31:20):
in and make the horse look huge and the dragon
look meek. Below is the statue in Melbourne. I really
like that someone has put a plastic rainbow lay on
the horse's tail, and indeed there it is. Yeah. Uh,
this one's like all the other ones where the dragon
is you know, maybe it's crocodile sized. I mean, a
crocodile can be dangerous, but in this this statue makes
(31:44):
St George look cruel, Like this dragon could not possibly
be be captivating an entire village. It looks like it
would be a mild nuisance, like it keeps eating the dogs,
that sort of thing. Yeah, well, thanks for getting in touch, Hana.
This is great. Alright. On that note, we're gonna take
one more break, but we'll be right back with more.
Thank thank Alright, we're back. We got several messages in
(32:11):
response to our episode about fermented vegetables where we talked
about kim chi and sauerkraut. Uh. This was a message
from Jim and New Jersey longtime correspondent. Jim says, how
you doing, Jim? Jim says Robert and Joe. I vacation
for a month in Japan a bit over thirty years ago.
I ate a lot of sushi, unlike the sushi one
gets in the US. The sushi dishes there included fermented vegetables.
(32:35):
They were often bright purple or orange. They were great,
and I've never found them in the US. Maybe the
higher end sushi establishments served them. Jim. That makes me
want what kind of bootlegs sushi establishments have been going to.
Okay Uh, He says, I've made fermented peppers from a
recipe in a magazine. It was very much like you
described with vegetables and saltwater. Topped with a loose lid
(32:57):
for several days. The article mentioned several times that this
was a perfectly safe process. The article included one helpful suggestion.
I liked this. It was a suggestion to keep the
peppers in the salt water while fermenting, because in my
my interview with Esther Miller, one of the things she
emphasized that was important to make sure that the fermentation
works properly and stay safe is to keep all your
(33:19):
vegetables submerged. They need to stay underneath the surface of
the brine because it's the anaerobic fermentation that's really important.
Um So, anyway, Jim goes on, right before you place
the lid on top of the jar, put some water
in a sandwich bag and seal it shut. Jam the
sandwich water bag into the top of the jar so
that it pushes the peppers down into the salt water.
(33:42):
Capital loose lid, and wait several days. Jim in New Jersey,
I think this sounds like a really good trick. I
haven't tried this. I actually have a couple of fermentation
weights that I use. Then they just sit on top
of the stuff and weigh it down. But they made
out of Are they stones? I don't know what they're
actually made out of. There some kind of clear material.
I would say clear plastic, but they feel kind of
(34:03):
denser and heavier than normal plastics, so I'm not exactly
sure what they are. There's some kind of food grade material,
but I bet this water bag trick would work. All right.
Here's another one. This one comes to us from Sean
Hi Joe and Robert, longtime listener and occasional writer, writing
in you have previously read out some emails of mine.
(34:24):
I'm currently listening to your episode on Kimchi, which I
haven't have finished yet, so if I say anything that
comes up later on in the episode, I am very sorry.
Bad form. Sean, Come on, you asked near the beginning
of your episode for people's experiences growing up with Duryan.
I didn't grow up with Duryan, as I've said in
my previous emails. I grew up in England and moved
to Indonesia several years ago. But its hands down my
(34:45):
favorite fruit. The first time I tried it, it didn't
do much for me. It had a slightly off taste.
After that time, I tried to avoid it and hated
the smell. This was difficult as at the time I
lived in Jakarta near a big Duryan market. However, after
going into a Durian market with someone who is experienced
and choosing the best Durian, I fell in love. It's sweet,
(35:06):
creamy flesh combined with the flavor of almost every fruit
known at once. It's incomparable. I definitely recommend trying your
first Durian with an experienced guide, as if the Durian
is slightly unright, the quality of flavor drops dramatically. But
a ripe Durian is the best thing ever. I also
love it when Durian has fermented slightly, so it has
(35:26):
a bit of a musty kick. When it's Durian season,
I love to buy one or two and eat them
together with my wife. My wife tells me how she
used to sit up late with her dad eating it.
For those who enjoy the fruit, eating it is a
social event in its own right. It's not just something
you snack on during your commute. I'm also loving this
episode so far. Being away from my homeland, I get
the occasional craving for English food. More often than not,
(35:50):
this is pickled food like gherkins still pickles, pickled beet
root or pickle lily, pickled vegetables with tumeric and mustard powder.
I don't know if I've had that. When I'm in
England on holiday, I stuffed my face with these treats,
you know, like a standard plain, old school yellow mustard,
not the spicy kind. Uh that that's actually going to
(36:10):
create a flavor somewhat similar to a piccoli, except a
pickle pick will have more discernible vegetable matter in it.
Got anyway, he continues, quote, I've taken to trying to
ferment my own foods out of necessity. You can buy
some pickled English foods here, but they're so expensive that
I try to make them at home. I regularly make
yogurt at home, as yogurt tends to be quite expensive,
(36:32):
but milk is relatively cheap. I found that pickling foods
is not only quite easy and cheap, but often a
lot tastier than once you'd get in a shop. I
love how almost every culture in the world has a
variant of pickled food. Here in Indonesia, we have a
car or a car that's a pickled cucumber, garlic, shallot,
and chili, and a car cooning similar to a car
(36:53):
but with the addition of tumeric. This is similar to
the Indian hr which was also the inspiration for the
English uh pick up picko lily. There's also a range
of fermented foods, including tempe, a kind of soybean cake
fermented with fungus, which I'm seeing more and more of
on American TV nowadays. Who I do love some tempe
(37:14):
is How about satan is um? Is that is that fermented?
I can't remember how that's made. I don't know what
is satan. A wheat is a wheat gluten product. I'm
not quite sure. Oh yeah, we need to look at there.
There's actually an idea we've been kicking around. I don't
want to spoil the fluff on it, but I kind
of want to do an episode in the future about
(37:36):
our modern choices in fake meats and meat substitutes, in
which case we will probably get into the nature of satan.
It makes you, It makes you wonder what is meat?
What counts is meat? I mean, obviously, like a big
hunk of like a pork shoulder is meat, but there
are some products in between. Yeah, and then what's the
meat experience, like one thing I like in dealing with
(37:58):
say um in a vegetarian aternatives to uh to burg
to meet based burgers. You know, it's like, sometimes you
have an item that really captures the feel of of
a meat patty. Other times it doesn't really capture that,
but it becomes its own thing and yet is somehow
still meat like in its experience. I'm downe with this idea, Robert.
I think you and I could get very psychedelic on
(38:20):
meat substitutes. All right, all right, well, Sean has just
a little bit left here. I'm gonna run through it.
I'd recommend reading the book Got by Julia enders Inders
dedicates a section of the book to fermented food and
how this ties in with our love of the sour taste.
She also points out, and I can't agree more than
once you have tried a particular fermented or pickled food,
you will never stop craving it. Thanks for another entertaining episode.
(38:43):
All the best, Sean. PS. If you guys are ever
in Indonesia after the madness of this year ends around
January to March time, I'll take you hunting for some
good deer in Yeah, I think we're locked in for now.
But that's, uh, that's a mighty tempting offer. Yeah. Now,
does Sean mean at a dree market or like ranging
over the landscape for wild jury in I assuming means
(39:05):
the market experience sounds sounds that sounds plenty exciting in
and of its its own right. But yeah, because I've
had very limited experience with during but I've certainly never
had an expert guide me. So that would that would
really be interesting to to have some top shelf Duryan.
All right, well, that's one more door of perception left
to walk through, the Duryan door. Alright. Uh. This next email,
(39:31):
this one was short, but this came from our listener Terrence.
Terrence writes about the Egg Chamber episode, specifically the segment
where we were talking about exploding eggs. Terrence says, I
have had the misadventure to have tried to cook two
raw eggs in the microwave. I cracked two eggs into
a coffee cup and nuked them for two to three minutes.
(39:52):
When they came out, I jammed a fork into it
and blamm oh the cooked egg explodes out, hitting my face,
putting a blast path are and on the ceiling. But
there was still all the egg whites left to eat painfully.
I enjoyed what was left. Never repeated this again. What Okay?
So I'm trying to understand Terrence's message here. It sounds
(40:13):
like he's saying he stuck the fork in, it exploded,
burned him, left a pattern on the ceiling, but pretty
much all of that was yolk, and then the stuff
left down in the mug was the egg white and
he ate it is that? Am I catching it all here?
I think? Okay? If I if I'm understanding this correctly,
this would be in line with the the interpretation we
(40:35):
talked about in the episode where the scientists thought that
probably what's happening is that pockets of superheated water are
trapped within the protein matrix of the yolk, specifically the yolk,
not the whites, and then of course when it gets pierced,
it suddenly flashes into steam, expands and blows the egg
all over the place pattern on the ceiling, that is
I'm trying to picture alright. Anyway, this next email comes
(41:01):
to us from Matthias. This one was about the demogorgan.
Matthias says, hey, guys, I was just listening to the
episode of the pot about the DeMorgan and there you
mentioned Paradise Lost by Milton and discussed various texts and
stories from Christian mythology, and all this made me think
about one of the most famous Hungarian epic poems or
stage plays. This thing is a strange one. It's called
(41:23):
The Tragedy of Man by I hope I'm saying this right,
m Imray Madoc from eighty three. I don't know if
you heard about it, but it's a good read. Well,
it isn't Hungarian. I didn't read all of the English version,
but from the little I did read, I think it's
a quite decent translation. The plot is a strange paraphrase
of the Faustas story, where instead of Dr Faustas the
(41:46):
Devil or whichever version of the story you like, tries
to tempt Adam in and outside of the Garden of
Eden by showing him the future of humanity, including the
Pharaohs of Egypt, the French Revolution, and a strange dystopian future.
So there is some science fiction in there for you,
and many more historical events in places, but I don't
(42:07):
want to spoil the whole thing anyway. Really love the show, guys,
keep it up. Now that it's summer, I'm at two
episodes a day. I know I have too much free time,
but what can you do? Cheers Matthias from Hungary. Oh,
that's awesome. Thanks for thanks for writing in and so Matthias,
and links to three different English translations of this play.
I was not familiar with whatever you call it, epic
(42:28):
poem play. I was not familiar with it, but I
I looked up some of these translations, and there's some
good stuff in it. So there's one translation from J. C. W.
Horn in nineteen sixty three, and there's a scene where
where Lucifer or the Devil, and Adam travel together into
space so that we get we get space travel, and
(42:49):
Lucifer says, so high are we now risen from the site?
First fades the beautiful, and then the great and mighty.
To let length. Not else remains to us than mathematics, cold, remote,
And then Adam says, now fade the stars behind us.
As we fly, I see no end, I feel no obstacle,
(43:11):
without love, without conflict? What is life here? All is
cold and terror Lucifer. Then Lucifer says, if thus far
only thou hast the heart to go then turn we
back and play amid the dust. That's beautiful. Yeah, the
Devil's taunting humans into space exploration, like, oh, you're too
scared to go into space? Well why don't you? You're
(43:33):
scared because space makes it seem like the only thing
that really exists as cold mathematics, Well why don't why
don't you go play in the dirt? Uh? And then
I checked out one of the other translations by somebody
called Auto Tom Shay And in the final scene, it
ends with the I don't think spoilers matter for a
hundred year old epic play, but so this is the
(43:55):
final scene warning within it ends with the creator, the Lord,
giving exhortation to Adam and Eve in their banishment from
the Garden of Eden, and the Lord says, I told
you man, fight, trust and be full of hope. Wow,
I'm so glad this was brought to our attention. This
is this is some really cool stuff that I had
just had no knowledge of. Yeah. Absolutely, I don't think
(44:17):
I've ever heard of this at all. So so thank
you so much, Matthias. I might I might have to
dive in alright, Well, speaking of outer space, I do
want to read this one from j D um and
this is in response to our episode about the star Lack. Hey, guys,
I've been binging on your podcast since the two thousand
nineteen Christmas holiday, which seems quite a long time ago.
(44:40):
If the most important thing I can do is to
rate and review you, where do I go to do that?
I currently pull your shows from the the I Heart
Radio side, and there doesn't appear to be a place
to rate and review you. All right, well, well's let's
let's tackle this first. We we do have to realize that, yes,
not every platform is going to provide you the opportunity
to rate, review and subscribe. Um. So, you know, don't
(45:03):
worry about it if it's not an option, But if
it is an option, it is something you can do
to help us out. Now onto the fun stuff, uh.
J D writes on your most recent post on the
star lak. Yes, there is a phenomenon where the earth
opens up and swallows you whole. And no, not earthquakes,
but sinkholes. This is a great point because sinkholes can
be incredibly dramatic. Um. So this is this is actually
(45:27):
a kind of a hole in in our research because
I can I can well imagine sinkholes, definitely helping to
inform in places this idea of the earth swallowing people totally.
And then the second point the j D brings up
not even a passing mention of dune worms. Does anything
about the star Lack not remind me of dune worms? Hell,
(45:49):
you even made a joke, a spice joke toward the end.
Am I missing something here? Um? Well, thank you for
complaining that we didn't talk about Done enough. Yeah, as
uh I I do. I do need to point out
that I was tempted to talk about the sand worms
of Iracus multiple times, but I was like, no, this
(46:09):
is about the star Lack, like, this is the Starlac,
the Starlacks time to shine. This is Star Wars time
right now, not Done time. However, we do have a
couple of Science of Done episodes in the back catalog,
one of which really gets into sandworms science and different
commentators breakdown of sandworms science and what is actually in
(46:30):
the works of Frank Herbert Um. So go back and
listen to those if you're interested. I know that since
we're gonna have this exciting new adaptation um of the
first half of the novel come out really in just
a few months. Um, I'm certainly excited to return to
the world of Done, so be on the lookout. We'll
probably bust those Done episodes back into the vault again
(46:54):
so people can can listen to them a little closer
to this new movie. And there are some additional Done
related topics we can discuss on the show, for sure. Yeah,
so it gets your hooks ready? What do they call
the climbing hooks that they used to saddle up the sandworms? Oh?
That the exact terminology is failing me now, but but
don't worry. I'm gonna bone up here in the most ahead,
(47:15):
all right. J D finishes out by saying, the episodes
on staring and pointing you recently put out are the
poster children for your brand of podcast, very clever liberal arts,
synthesis of ancient art and behavior that explains some of
the stuff that not only happens today, but that we
all do and react to. Still thinking about some of
the items you raised on those episodes, j D, Oh,
(47:36):
thanks glad you liked them. All right, Well, Carney is
beginning to explode again, and that's his way of letting
us know that our time here is at an end.
But again, uh, you know, we we don't have time
to read everything that we receive here on the show.
(47:56):
We don't have time to respond to everybody individually, but
we continue to enjoy um and and learn from to
benefit from your insight into the topics we discussed on
the show every week, So keep them coming and we
will keep reading them in the meantime. If you like
to check out other episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
you can find them wherever you get your podcasts and
(48:16):
wherever that happens to be if the form, if the
particular platform allows it, rate, review, and subscribe. 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 to Blow Your Mind is
(48:46):
production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for My
Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you're listening to your favorite shows. B B B
Boy Pressing sad point four Part
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My
Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. In
Today we're bringing you some listener mail. It's been a
little bit since we did that, so we're broadcasting from
our respective laundry rooms and closets here. But we're getting
(00:26):
back in touch with you now that you've gotten in
touch with us, and to help us out here today
our mail bought Carney. Oh, he's gotten into a mess
of trouble. It seems that Carney has gotten into his
mind that he should create AI generated fireworks displays. And boy,
he can really mark off chain up a mess here, Andy,
he's sure can. I mean, he was always a little
(00:47):
bit explosive in the best of times, but now he
has actual explosives just his His entire fuselage is just
stuffed with Roman candles. Yeah. So it is with great
delicate see that we must remove your messages from from
Carneys bowels today. But yeah, it's all I want to
do when I reiterate just at the top of this
(01:09):
episode that it is always great to hear from everyone
out there, to hear from listeners. Uh. We we don't
certainly don't have time to respond to everything, and we
don't have time on the show to feature everything, but
we do read everything that comes in. Uh. We love
it when you provide additional inside or experience related to
different topics that we've covered, and when we do cover
(01:31):
quite a few topics that I think touch on the
universal human experience as well. Exactly right. But also we
we cover things that get into the very specific human experience,
for example, the number of people who have jumped out
of an airplane and gotten in touch with us to
tell us what that's like. So should we start with
this email from Kelly here, Let's do it. Kelly writes, Hey, guys,
(01:55):
I just started listening to your podcast recently, and I've
been shuffling around different episode topics that looked interesting. I
had to listen to one about surviving a ten thousand
footfall as I'm a professional skydiver and I knew you
would definitely bring up a lot of skydiving in it.
I know it's almost a year old, but oh well,
you ask what terminal velocity feels like. My best description
(02:15):
that I tell tandem students who are worried about that
belly and the throat feeling is that it is more
accurately comparable to the feeling of sticking your hand out
the window on the freeway. You feel supported resistance, and
when you exit a plane, you are going the same
speed as the plane, so you don't get that free
fall feeling you would when jumping off a static object. Also,
(02:37):
the way you orient your body is like when you're
surfing your hand like a wave out the window. When
you point your finger down, you feel you're slicing the
air and up gives you left. Uh. Fun fact, wingsuits
can slow down to about thirty miles per hour and
actually go up when doing the maneuver called a flare,
(02:57):
which is what we do to slow down in a
wing suit before deploying our parachutes and would be my
go to move right before impact if I had no
parachute out. My friends survived a wingsuit base jumping accident
with no parachute out when he went into the trees
and took out a thirty meter line of dense forest,
and another survived with nothing out while jumping off a
(03:19):
three and fifty foot bridge. He landed in the river
below and swam himself to the beach with a ton
of broken bones. But this kind of luck is almost
entirely unheard of. Love your show and I'm so happy
to have discovered it. If you ever have any skydiving questions,
feel free to shoot me a message. Thanks. Kelly. Wow
swamed ashore with broken bones that gives me the willies. Yeah,
(03:41):
I found the interesting the mention of wingsuits, And I
don't remember if we got into wingsuits much on that
episode at all. I don't think so, but it's it's
a topic that I wrote an article for How Stuff
Works about wingsuits ages ago, and then the I want
to say, the most recent World Science Festival in New York,
which would have been the twenty nineteen one, there was
(04:04):
a there was a talk about about the human brain
and extreme sports and like people who do extreme things
like you know, a free climbing and wingsuit flying, like
what's going on in their mind? And there was at
one point one of the experts was just getting into
the just the statistics of wingsuits and wingsuit technology and
(04:26):
sort of like the different you know, ups and downs
of how dangerous it is. It was really quite quite fascinating.
If anyone out there is interested in checking out a
video of that presentation. It was titled the Science of
Extreme Behavior, the Line between Courageous and Crazy. You can
find it on on the YouTube channel for the World
Science Festival. It's it's really fascinating, all right. Do you
(04:51):
want to take a look at this next email about
my interview with bart Ermine on his book Heaven and Hell. Yes,
this one comes from our listener Ben. Ben says, hello
from London, Robert and Joe. I just finished listening to
the Heaven and Hell episode and wanted to share a
few cool tidbits in the same vein. I studied classics
at university and as a result got to read some
(05:13):
very cool texts in the original Latin and ancient Greek.
While I only read a bit of the Bible. I
thought it was interesting how the first sentence, and I
think this is the first sentence of the Gospel of
John was in the beginning was the word in English?
But Ben says that in Greek it is in the
beginning was reason. And I'm gonna try to pronounce this
(05:34):
in ark in whole logos. I could theoretically get behind
that statement a lot more. Uh, And yeah, I've I've
actually looked into this before there there is this question
about how exactly to translate that statement at the beginning
of the Gospel of John. But yeah, reason and the word, uh,
these concepts are are sort of synonymous and linked in
(05:55):
ancient Greek. Oh that's that's good. Yeah, because they in
the beginning there was the word. I remember being con
used by that as a as a child, I'm like,
what do you saying? You're saying the Bible came first,
Like what what do you mean? There was their words first, Like,
this doesn't make any sense. But logos reason being first,
that makes a lot more sense. Okay, and Ben goes
on another possibly apocryphal story I heard, which the Barberman
(06:17):
episode reminded me of, is the origin of the saying
it doesn't matter in Iota, as I heard it at
the Council of Nicea in three the early Church fathers
were debating the nature of Jesus, whether he was like
the substance of God or of the same substance as God,
which in Greek the difference would be homoros or homoios. Clearly,
(06:41):
this decision had massive ramifications for the future development of
in schisms within Christianity, and as you can see one
iota mattered an awful lot. So the difference there is
the difference between an r and an eye in that
word um. But this was like a hugely significant theological dispute,
And so I don't know if this is the origin
(07:01):
of that phrase. It doesn't matter one iota. I know.
The idea of an iota of difference also has roots
in the Bible itself, in the Gospel of Matthew, where
where in the in the Telling of Matthew, Jesus says
that you know, not one iota of the law will
pass away, often translated as not one jot or tittle.
I think it just means like one of the smallest
(07:21):
possible markings in writing. And this is making the point
that the author of the Gospel of Matthew particularly wants
to make, which is that Jesus is the fulfillment of
the Jewish law. But this ties into my conversation with
Bart Irmin because one of the things that Bart and
I talked about was how, especially in later development in
the Church, like in in later Christian centuries, UH, there
(07:45):
was much more fierce debate over differences in theology that
seemed very small to us that mattered a lot to them,
like debates over exactly what type of substance the incarnation
of Christ was, Did Jesus have a belly button? That
sort of thing. Yeah, so Ben goes on. The last
thing I wanted to share was how great the Greek
(08:06):
neo Platonist philosopher plot in Nous was and how important
his thoughts were to the development of Christian concepts. His
main work was the a Needs, elements of which shaped
the Christian idea of the Trinity and the thorny issue
of how Jesus could be both man and God at
the same time. Well worth a read if you can
find a good translation. That's it. Great episode. I love
(08:28):
all that stuff, even though I'm a pragmatic secular atheist
in the Judeo Christian monotheistic sense. Thanks, stay safe, keep
making great episodes. Been well, Thank you, Ben, Yes, indeed,
and you know, I'm I'm hoping we'll hear from some
more listeners on this topic, because I know we have
a lot of listeners out there who are either you know,
to varying degrees and an active number of of of
(08:51):
one of the faiths affected by the ideas that were
discussed in that episode, or you have, you know, a
past with those with with the chures that are attached
to those traditions. Um, I feel like, you know, a
lot of us have some insight to share on just
sort of the general ideas regarding hell and heaven. They're
wrapped up in our cultures. Yeah, exactly. I think one
(09:14):
point that Bart made that I think is absolutely true
is even if you are not personally Christian or Jewish,
the ideas of the Bible still have been massively influent,
fluential in shaping the culture that we live in here
and you know, in the United States and in Europe especially. Yeah.
You know, in our recent episode that we recorded, I
don't know if it's out yet as of this publication,
(09:34):
but we're talking about helmets and the idea of Viking
helmets with horns showing up in in cartoons when we're
a child, and that just kind of gets burnt into
your brain. And then when you later learned that Vikings
did not have hornet helmets, it doesn't matter because you
still have that that idea knocking around your head. With
heaven and hell. It's the same thing, like how many
(09:54):
different cartoons, how many different you know, films, the young
of viewers would have seen ended up utilizing, you know,
an angel and devil having in hell of motifs and symbolism.
Isn't it strange how many cartoons show characters going to Hell.
I remember that happening all the time in Looney Tunes
(10:15):
and so yeah, oh and in Disney cartoons like I
think Pluto the Dog went to Hell Hell run by
cats for messing with cats or something. I strongly remember
images from that one because I had some really diabolical content. Um,
but yeah, I digress. Uh, well, should we go onto
(10:38):
this next email we got about fireworks from Kelsey? Yes,
so when I can tell that Carney is particularly excited
about this one, all right, um, Kelsey rides Hello. I
was delighted to see the topic of your show today
as my father has worked in the fireworks industry for
about twenty years now, so it's a place near and
dear to my heart. In fact, when I was in
elementary school, my first science fair project was a detailed
(11:00):
breakdown of how display fireworks the mortar kind you described
near the end of the show are made, complete with
models that I made from actual shell casings with considerable
help for my dad, who was managing one of the
last remaining fireworks manufacturing plants in the US at the time.
I don't think the judges quite knew what to do
with an earnest third grader explaining how to make a bomb,
(11:21):
but needless to say, my physics space project about leverage
the next year won me more accolades. At any rate.
I wanted to write in because there are actually people
out there who make fireworks in their backyards. As it were,
you do need to have a fair amount of space
to legally slash safely store large amounts of black powder,
but otherwise the process of making fireworks isn't terribly difficult
(11:43):
or even that unsafe, so long as you follow some
basic rules for handling, disposal, etcetera. I'm not actually sure
what the exact laws are surrounding this sort of thing,
but I know my dad has plenty of industry friends
who have small workshops where they can play around and
develop new formulas. When I was younger, the Pyro club
my dad belonged to would rent out a field occasionally
so that people could bring their stuff and show it off.
(12:07):
Some cool, less well known firework things. Until Tepic, a
city north of Mexico City. They have an annual fireworks
festival that involves two incredibly harrowing events. Number One, they
construct paper mache bulls which are worn sort of over
the head and shoulders, um or places on some kind
or placed on some kind of a wheeled cart. And
(12:28):
then they strap a bunch of fireworks to those and
essentially do a sort of running of the bulls in
the town square. But you know, on fire? WHOA that's this?
This reminds me of the story by the Pyromancers of
England about creating St. George and the Dragon. But they're
full of fireworks exactly. Uh so that's interesting. We didn't
get into that that is much. But I wonder, like
(12:50):
to what mean when you're dealing with the burning of
things in effigy um and creating works of sculpture that
incorporate fire like that. That seems to play a in
the history of pyrotechnics as well. Anyway. Um. She goes
on to share a second example too. They create these
beautiful fireworks fireworks driven automatons, which they then rig up
(13:12):
on these huge towers. I believe each crew gets their
own tower, and it's a competition to see which is
the best. My dad has attended this event several times,
though some years ago now, and apparently if one of
the automatons gets stuck, guys will just scale the burning
tower to give the recalcitrant part a little nudge and
get things going again. And with all that knowledge in mind,
(13:33):
I was unsurprised to find, upon googling for images that
apparently Mexico has a huge problem with firework fatalities and
an explosion until topic killed a bunch of people as
recently as two thousand and eighteen. So that's very unfortunate,
because all the pictures my father took of the festival
in the nineties were absolutely amazing. I'll have to see
if I can get him to scan some and pass
(13:54):
them along. Meanwhile, on the island of Malta, probably because
they have something to prove, they make the apps huge
fireworkshells you'll see below, and she includes some images and
these just look like they they're as big as a person.
They look like massive, like oxygen tanks, absurd gigantic. She continues,
(14:14):
why so big? I don't know. They too have a
yearly fireworks festival, which I would love to attend at
some point. Anyway, if you have any specific questions, I'm
more than happy to pick my dad's brain for answers
and has always keep up the good work, Kelsey. Oh,
thank you, Kelsey. Well, it is very sad to hear
that that in the in the Mexican festival, that there
would be fatalities involved with it. But it does make
(14:35):
me wonder, like, um, is it or is it not
part of the appeal of the fireworks that they're dangerous?
Do you think, like generally like is that sort of
part of what people like about them? Perhaps? You know,
there's that that definite feeling of of of lighting the
firework and then in the few starts burning and you
have to run away really quick quickly, and then dare
(14:57):
to look back and see what happens, and there is
always the possibility that it's going to fall over and
you know, blast something it's not supposed to blast, or
that the fire will uh well will fizzle out, the
fuse will stop burning, and you'll have to figure out, Okay,
how am I gonna go up there and check on
it without blasting my face off? So yeah, I think
the danger is a part of it. Um, though of
(15:20):
course the danger is the worst part of it too, right, Well,
obviously it's it's terrible when people actually get hurt or killed. Yeah,
and then of course, on top of that, if you're
dealing with irresponsible use of fireworks, I mean, that's that's
even worse. Using fireworks in areas that um that they're
you know, suffered from trout and they're not legally allowed
using fireworks in a way that is irresponsible or dangerous
(15:42):
to yourself or others. I mean, I've heard horrible stories
about that sort of thing before. Yes, So again, while
it is a fascinating topic, please do be aware of
the dangerous and please don't go messing around doing dangerous
stuff because of an email we read on this show. Yes,
all right, Well, on that note, we're gonna take a
quick break, but when we come back, more listener mail.
Thank you, thank you. All right, we're back. So this
(16:08):
next message in our listener Mail episode comes from Brian.
Brian is writing about our episodes on the invention of
the book. Brian says, Dear Robert and Joe, I've been
a listener to Stuff to Blow your mind for many years,
often thought of sending feedback your way related to previous
podcasts but never got around to it. However, while bicycle
(16:29):
writing and listening to Your Books podcast the first episode
through a sudden Seattle downpour, I decided to send in
some comments specifically related to the question you posed about
what actually constitutes a book. Several months ago, I was
introduced to a scholar by the name of Lynn Kelly,
interviewed by Sean Carroll on his Mindscape podcast. A science writer, researcher,
(16:51):
and educator, she became interested in studying preliterate oral cultures,
beginning with the Aboriginal culture of her native Australia and
eventually including various African nomadic cultures Incas and pueblos of
the America's. As a result of this research, she developed
a very intriguing theory which literally blew my mind literally
(17:11):
is dangerous when I first heard her describe it. She
has published an academic paper on the theory, as well
as a general interest book entitled The Memory Code. Her
theory suggests that preliterate oral cultures utilized the immense human
capacity for memory to encode many books worth of information
in their brains in a manner similar to how modern
(17:33):
memory champions do today. The ancient memory techniques ranged from
performance triggers and this would include stories, songs and dances,
to loci triggers, landscape features, physical space and memory palaces,
and tactile triggers beads, shells and knots. The common element
through all these techniques, however, is the brain's power of association,
(17:56):
particularly when associating odd, absurd on usual images with what
you want to remember. This capacity seems to scale logarithmically
as opposed to linearly, which allows those skilled in these
techniques to encode vast amounts of information in their memories. Additionally,
her theory suggests the purpose of some Neolithic architecture, for
(18:17):
example Stoneheinge, Chaco Canyon, Machu Pichu, etcetera, was more related
to essential memory retention than to religious based rituals more
commonly associated with these sites. Of particular relation to your
book definition question would be the shape and tactile techniques
Lynn describes and shows in her Memory Code book. These
(18:38):
ranged from the elaborate rope knots used by the incas
two small handheld pieces of wood or stone carvings, hides
with shells or other small objects attached, somewhat similar to
the modern Brail alphabet, but with a capacity to encode
orders of magnitude more information per page than a modern book.
Certainly a pre alphabet form of in formation storage, and
(19:01):
one that has sharing limitations but does meet many of
the criteria of more modern books. Anyway, keep up the
great information sharing work that your team does with these podcasts.
Best Brian Well, Brian, I, I've heard other theories before
about different ideas about how memories were encoded in in
preliterate times and in preliterate cultures, and I don't think
(19:22):
I'd come exactly across this theory before, but this is
an interesting possibility, like the idea that structures in the
environment and different types of trinkets and objects held in
the hand or on the body could essentially be tools
used to aid in free association through memory to retain
large amounts of information that would be hard to remember
(19:43):
on its own. Yeah, that's a great point, and it
reminds me too of just the idea of say a
Christian cathedral, a Catholic cathedral, or uh, say it to
Tibetan Buddhist temple. These are spaces that are, in their
own way, a kind of text. They're about um, recording
information and conveying ideas to the person who is present,
(20:07):
Like when you're inside of a cathedral. You know, certainly
just the architecture of the space is supposed to inform
a certain message about the the nature of the cosmos
or the the grandeur of the divine. And then likewise
you'll see examples of sculpture or art that are about
making some sort of difficult theological concept palpable to the
(20:30):
human mind, like something explaining the nature of the Trinity,
that sort of thing. And likewise, in in Tibetan Buddhism especially,
we have some very you know, advanced sort of spiritual
technologies and play there. Um I've I've read that that
is that that's often the intent of some of these
more elaborate and to many Western eyes, you know, mysterious
(20:50):
pieces of art. It's about conveying uh, theological information to
the viewer and helping and even serving as a teaching implement.
All right, let's uh open up another listener mail here.
This one comes to us from Danny. Danny writes in
and says, Hi, Robert and Joe, thank you for all
(21:11):
the content you provide weekend and week out. It's comforting
to have you in my ear while running or mowing
the lawn or the dreaded commute. I'm writing for a
few reasons, all related to your recent episodes on invention
regarding invented words. Firstly, I've been trying to learn Japanese
as of late, and I was fascinated when I came
across a lesson that taught me the word itto uh,
(21:33):
which is a filler word that translates to um in English.
I'd never thought about it before, but apparently we learn
all of these words that I just thought were basic
sounds that humans made from birth. I always assumed that
when a person is thinking about a topic or or
stumped for a bit, they just naturally say the word mm.
But I guess the word that comes out of our
(21:54):
mouth depends on the language we learn. This newfound discovery
prompted me to look into it, and it appears all
languages are full of these filler words. Maybe this was
obvious to most people, but I was not aware. Yeah,
this is an interesting thing, and it's not just words.
I mean, it can be just pure vowel sounds we
I think in English, English speakers very often tend to
(22:15):
default to the schwa sound, because that's sort of a
rest sound in in the English language, but in other
languages you might rest on a different vowel sound. So
where we would say not even um, but uh, other
languages might be more likely to say a or oh.
They continue somewhat similarly. You guys spoke about on a
(22:37):
monopeia and the word yeat. I don't know how you
really classify something as having an on amonopeia equality to it,
but I can get behind yeat. I find a lot
of our sound words are just kind of sort of
related to how they actually sound, but it's not by
any means concrete. Does something really bang or slam? Or
are we just used to the words associated with those sounds.
(22:59):
A dog says wow in English but now now in
Spanish and black in Afrikaans? Does it really sound like
one over the other or are we just used to
these words? Or maybe animal sounds are not supposed to
be on a monopeas and I am way off anyways,
I can support heat well. I think you're getting into
the territory there of like idiophones that we talked about
(23:21):
in a previous episode, where something suggests a kind of
sound association even though it's not based on anything audible. Yeah, lastly,
I wanted to get to your thoughts on women in
a word or phrases lifespan it can officially means something
different than its original definition. I think of the term
begs the question. In college I had a philosophy professor.
(23:41):
They would absolutely lose it when somebody used the term
begs the question incorrectly. In classical rhetoric, the term refers
to an informal fallacy that occurs when an argument's premises
assume the truth of the conclusion instead of supporting it.
An example could be quote, everybody wants this new Pokemon
toy because it is the hottest toy this holiday season. However,
(24:03):
nowadays it seems that when people use the term they
are simply raising and suggesting a question. So, although I
understand what my philosophy teacher was getting at, at what
point can we just say, Hey, look, this phrase means
something else now, so get on board. Anyway, Uh, this
got a little longer than I expected. I just love
the idea of words and languages and how we have
different ways of communicating. Thanks for speaking about this subject
(24:26):
and all of the other topics you cover. I truly
appreciate it. Danny Um. Of course, of course, brings to
mind the frequent misuse of literally. Yeah, did this come
up in an earlier email. I think it did. We
don't want to shame you too much for it. Uh No,
I don't even know if we're allowed to shame anyone
for it now, because apparently definitions are shifting to to
(24:47):
the point where you can legally from a grammatical sense,
you can legally say something is literally something and not
mean literally. You can say he literally took his head off,
or I literally wanted to puke, and it doesn't mean
you literally did that, and it means figuratively. Yeah, I mean. So,
there are obviously these different schools of how you should
(25:10):
approach the use of words and phrases like that. Like
there's the prescriptivist school, which says, you know, here's what
it means in established you know, canons, and and you
should stick to that original meaning. And then I guess
there's like the usage school that says, you know, however,
if if people understand what you mean, and then what's
the problem. And I do I have sympathies with both camps.
(25:31):
I guess I will say against the prescriptivist school that
just says, you know, you need to use a word
or phrase to mean what it's always meant. I don't know.
I mean it's embarrassing when you realize how many arguments
full of passionate intensity really in the income down to
people arguing about what a word or phrase means. That's
just a mind meltingly tedious. So based on that, I
(25:53):
think language should be evaluated on the basis of its
power to communicate. Will the listener understand what you intend
to say? Then? Again, at the same time, I have
to admit, like I have a gut level reaction against
that kind of thing when I see literally used not
to mean literally, especially when I catch myself doing it,
I just feel like, oh, yeah, it's I always come
(26:16):
back to like a stand up bit that David Cross
had about it about how when you use literally wrong,
it's like, this is not just incorrect usage, it's it's
the the opposite of what is supposed to mean. Um.
I think that the example he used was, it's it's
not like when you say pen ultimate and you mean ultimate. Uh.
You know, I can easily get kind of worked up
over it myself. But at the same hand, I agree
(26:38):
that it's like like language is going to change over time,
and we can't you know, we can't get mad when
it does change. Yeah, I agree. You can't fix it.
You can't keep it stuck in place. That language has
always changed. It's actually a relatively modern invention, like the
notion that words that you must use words and grammar
in a certain way. I mean, if you go back
(27:00):
and read ancient texts, they do not follow consistent rules
of grammar and stuff like. It's it's more usage based,
it's more fluid. It's just like are you going to
be understood? Though, I will admit I I also this
exact same thing about your philosophy teacher with begs the
question That one gets to me sometimes I know exactly
what people mean. I don't. I try not to hound
(27:22):
to people about it because people are gonna understand what
you mean when you say begs the question, you mean
it raises the question. But yeah, I've got that like
stupid rhetoric brain where it's like this actually is a fallacy.
Is the name of a fallacy? You're insulting somebody if
you say they beg the question. But anyway, I I can,
I can purge my rhetoric brain for a bit. All right, well,
(27:46):
what do we have next here? All right, looks like
we got a couple from uh Anna about our Slayer episode.
Oh yeah, this is when we put out a list
of Halloween episodes from past October, the Haftober playlist. Yes,
uh so this one goes as follows. Hi, Robert and Joe.
(28:09):
In a recent Vault episode, you were discussing instinctive fears
of spiders and snakes. I live in Australia, here, where
there are a lot of spiders and snakes. There's a
very common spider called a Huntsman spider. They're very large
harry spiders. Although many people were afraid of these spiders,
there's also a common reaction to them that is something
like affection. A common nickname for them is Harry Huntsman.
(28:31):
They seem to like to live near people, like in
houses and cars. Often, if someone is showing up around
their house, they will show them into a room where
there is a Huntsman on the wall. Someone who is
unfamiliar with the area might point at it nervously and say,
there is a huge spider up there. The person whose
room it is will often say something like oh, that's
just Harry. Here in Australia, the spiders that are deadly
(28:53):
are much smaller than huntsman spiders. The part that is
scary about huntsmand spiders is the way they move. Somehow
they seem to scuttle and glide at the same time.
In fact, huntsmen have caused death, but because of the
fear and not the spider themselves. Spiders like to hide
in cars. Sometimes they will hide under the sun visor
or in the rear view mirror. The spider will one
(29:14):
across the windscreen and someone will crash their car as
a fear reaction. People have also been known to take
drastic action in trying to get rid of one of
these spiders in the house, and sometimes people hurt themselves
as a part of these actions. If I may add
um this, this has a real poetic quality to it
that I'm loving. There's like a I feel like I'm
(29:36):
I'm reading poetry. It's got a heck of a rhythm. Yeah,
we have a lot of snakes here. Generally the best
idea is just to leave them alone. I think knowledge
is the best way to combat fear. Knowing which snakes
are dangerous and which are not and what to do
when you see a snake is helpful. Secondly, I know
you have mentioned that in most myths about snakes, they
(29:56):
are the enemy. One exception to this is Australian indig myths.
One of the common myths among Australian Indigenous groups is
the rainbow serpent. In this myth, the rainbow serpent is
actually a creator. The rainbow serpent is something like a
creator God. As it moved through the land, it carves
out the landscape of Australia. This is my memory of
(30:16):
the story we were told in school, so it might
be a bit simplistic or inaccurate. I hope you are
staying safe here in Australia. I feel like we are
feeling something like disaster fatigue. We have had drought, terrible
fires and heat waves than storms than the current pandemic.
Australia has always handled this well, but is still tough
for many people. Just when we wanted people to go
(30:38):
and visit rural areas to recover from the fires and drought,
the lockdowns happened. So many people are really struggling. Anyway,
I have gone on for too long. Now keep up
the good work. Anna, you know, often we hear from
Australians who sort of characterize it as the land of
spiders and snakes. It's sort of like the venom Continent.
But yeah, I really appreciate the spirit of gentle, illness
(31:00):
and grace with which you're approaching these venomous creatures. Yeah.
And I also have to say I really like the
poetic cadence of of this particular email. This one is
a real pleasure to read now, Anna. I also wrote
in in another email and sent along um photograph, writing
I enjoyed re listening to your episode about monster Slayers.
You were talking about St. George and how image is
(31:20):
in and make the horse look huge and the dragon
look meek. Below is the statue in Melbourne. I really
like that someone has put a plastic rainbow lay on
the horse's tail, and indeed there it is. Yeah. Uh,
this one's like all the other ones where the dragon
is you know, maybe it's crocodile sized. I mean, a
crocodile can be dangerous, but in this this statue makes
(31:44):
St George look cruel, Like this dragon could not possibly
be be captivating an entire village. It looks like it
would be a mild nuisance, like it keeps eating the dogs,
that sort of thing. Yeah, well, thanks for getting in touch, Hana.
This is great. Alright. On that note, we're gonna take
one more break, but we'll be right back with more.
Thank thank Alright, we're back. We got several messages in
(32:11):
response to our episode about fermented vegetables where we talked
about kim chi and sauerkraut. Uh. This was a message
from Jim and New Jersey longtime correspondent. Jim says, how
you doing, Jim? Jim says Robert and Joe. I vacation
for a month in Japan a bit over thirty years ago.
I ate a lot of sushi, unlike the sushi one
gets in the US. The sushi dishes there included fermented vegetables.
(32:35):
They were often bright purple or orange. They were great,
and I've never found them in the US. Maybe the
higher end sushi establishments served them. Jim. That makes me
want what kind of bootlegs sushi establishments have been going to.
Okay Uh, He says, I've made fermented peppers from a
recipe in a magazine. It was very much like you
described with vegetables and saltwater. Topped with a loose lid
(32:57):
for several days. The article mentioned several times that this
was a perfectly safe process. The article included one helpful suggestion.
I liked this. It was a suggestion to keep the
peppers in the salt water while fermenting, because in my
my interview with Esther Miller, one of the things she
emphasized that was important to make sure that the fermentation
works properly and stay safe is to keep all your
(33:19):
vegetables submerged. They need to stay underneath the surface of
the brine because it's the anaerobic fermentation that's really important.
Um So, anyway, Jim goes on, right before you place
the lid on top of the jar, put some water
in a sandwich bag and seal it shut. Jam the
sandwich water bag into the top of the jar so
that it pushes the peppers down into the salt water.
(33:42):
Capital loose lid, and wait several days. Jim in New Jersey,
I think this sounds like a really good trick. I
haven't tried this. I actually have a couple of fermentation
weights that I use. Then they just sit on top
of the stuff and weigh it down. But they made
out of Are they stones? I don't know what they're
actually made out of. There some kind of clear material.
I would say clear plastic, but they feel kind of
(34:03):
denser and heavier than normal plastics, so I'm not exactly
sure what they are. There's some kind of food grade material,
but I bet this water bag trick would work. All right.
Here's another one. This one comes to us from Sean
Hi Joe and Robert, longtime listener and occasional writer, writing
in you have previously read out some emails of mine.
(34:24):
I'm currently listening to your episode on Kimchi, which I
haven't have finished yet, so if I say anything that
comes up later on in the episode, I am very sorry.
Bad form. Sean, Come on, you asked near the beginning
of your episode for people's experiences growing up with Duryan.
I didn't grow up with Duryan, as I've said in
my previous emails. I grew up in England and moved
to Indonesia several years ago. But its hands down my
(34:45):
favorite fruit. The first time I tried it, it didn't
do much for me. It had a slightly off taste.
After that time, I tried to avoid it and hated
the smell. This was difficult as at the time I
lived in Jakarta near a big Duryan market. However, after
going into a Durian market with someone who is experienced
and choosing the best Durian, I fell in love. It's sweet,
(35:06):
creamy flesh combined with the flavor of almost every fruit
known at once. It's incomparable. I definitely recommend trying your
first Durian with an experienced guide, as if the Durian
is slightly unright, the quality of flavor drops dramatically. But
a ripe Durian is the best thing ever. I also
love it when Durian has fermented slightly, so it has
(35:26):
a bit of a musty kick. When it's Durian season,
I love to buy one or two and eat them
together with my wife. My wife tells me how she
used to sit up late with her dad eating it.
For those who enjoy the fruit, eating it is a
social event in its own right. It's not just something
you snack on during your commute. I'm also loving this
episode so far. Being away from my homeland, I get
the occasional craving for English food. More often than not,
(35:50):
this is pickled food like gherkins still pickles, pickled beet
root or pickle lily, pickled vegetables with tumeric and mustard powder.
I don't know if I've had that. When I'm in
England on holiday, I stuffed my face with these treats,
you know, like a standard plain, old school yellow mustard,
not the spicy kind. Uh that that's actually going to
(36:10):
create a flavor somewhat similar to a piccoli, except a
pickle pick will have more discernible vegetable matter in it.
Got anyway, he continues, quote, I've taken to trying to
ferment my own foods out of necessity. You can buy
some pickled English foods here, but they're so expensive that
I try to make them at home. I regularly make
yogurt at home, as yogurt tends to be quite expensive,
(36:32):
but milk is relatively cheap. I found that pickling foods
is not only quite easy and cheap, but often a
lot tastier than once you'd get in a shop. I
love how almost every culture in the world has a
variant of pickled food. Here in Indonesia, we have a
car or a car that's a pickled cucumber, garlic, shallot,
and chili, and a car cooning similar to a car
(36:53):
but with the addition of tumeric. This is similar to
the Indian hr which was also the inspiration for the
English uh pick up picko lily. There's also a range
of fermented foods, including tempe, a kind of soybean cake
fermented with fungus, which I'm seeing more and more of
on American TV nowadays. Who I do love some tempe
(37:14):
is How about satan is um? Is that is that fermented?
I can't remember how that's made. I don't know what
is satan. A wheat is a wheat gluten product. I'm
not quite sure. Oh yeah, we need to look at there.
There's actually an idea we've been kicking around. I don't
want to spoil the fluff on it, but I kind
of want to do an episode in the future about
(37:36):
our modern choices in fake meats and meat substitutes, in
which case we will probably get into the nature of satan.
It makes you, It makes you wonder what is meat?
What counts is meat? I mean, obviously, like a big
hunk of like a pork shoulder is meat, but there
are some products in between. Yeah, and then what's the
meat experience, like one thing I like in dealing with
(37:58):
say um in a vegetarian aternatives to uh to burg
to meet based burgers. You know, it's like, sometimes you
have an item that really captures the feel of of
a meat patty. Other times it doesn't really capture that,
but it becomes its own thing and yet is somehow
still meat like in its experience. I'm downe with this idea, Robert.
I think you and I could get very psychedelic on
(38:20):
meat substitutes. All right, all right, well, Sean has just
a little bit left here. I'm gonna run through it.
I'd recommend reading the book Got by Julia enders Inders
dedicates a section of the book to fermented food and
how this ties in with our love of the sour taste.
She also points out, and I can't agree more than
once you have tried a particular fermented or pickled food,
you will never stop craving it. Thanks for another entertaining episode.
(38:43):
All the best, Sean. PS. If you guys are ever
in Indonesia after the madness of this year ends around
January to March time, I'll take you hunting for some
good deer in Yeah, I think we're locked in for now.
But that's, uh, that's a mighty tempting offer. Yeah. Now,
does Sean mean at a dree market or like ranging
over the landscape for wild jury in I assuming means
(39:05):
the market experience sounds sounds that sounds plenty exciting in
and of its its own right. But yeah, because I've
had very limited experience with during but I've certainly never
had an expert guide me. So that would that would
really be interesting to to have some top shelf Duryan.
All right, well, that's one more door of perception left
to walk through, the Duryan door. Alright. Uh. This next email,
(39:31):
this one was short, but this came from our listener Terrence.
Terrence writes about the Egg Chamber episode, specifically the segment
where we were talking about exploding eggs. Terrence says, I
have had the misadventure to have tried to cook two
raw eggs in the microwave. I cracked two eggs into
a coffee cup and nuked them for two to three minutes.
(39:52):
When they came out, I jammed a fork into it
and blamm oh the cooked egg explodes out, hitting my face,
putting a blast path are and on the ceiling. But
there was still all the egg whites left to eat painfully.
I enjoyed what was left. Never repeated this again. What Okay?
So I'm trying to understand Terrence's message here. It sounds
(40:13):
like he's saying he stuck the fork in, it exploded,
burned him, left a pattern on the ceiling, but pretty
much all of that was yolk, and then the stuff
left down in the mug was the egg white and
he ate it is that? Am I catching it all here?
I think? Okay? If I if I'm understanding this correctly,
this would be in line with the the interpretation we
(40:35):
talked about in the episode where the scientists thought that
probably what's happening is that pockets of superheated water are
trapped within the protein matrix of the yolk, specifically the yolk,
not the whites, and then of course when it gets pierced,
it suddenly flashes into steam, expands and blows the egg
all over the place pattern on the ceiling, that is
I'm trying to picture alright. Anyway, this next email comes
(41:01):
to us from Matthias. This one was about the demogorgan.
Matthias says, hey, guys, I was just listening to the
episode of the pot about the DeMorgan and there you
mentioned Paradise Lost by Milton and discussed various texts and
stories from Christian mythology, and all this made me think
about one of the most famous Hungarian epic poems or
stage plays. This thing is a strange one. It's called
(41:23):
The Tragedy of Man by I hope I'm saying this right,
m Imray Madoc from eighty three. I don't know if
you heard about it, but it's a good read. Well,
it isn't Hungarian. I didn't read all of the English version,
but from the little I did read, I think it's
a quite decent translation. The plot is a strange paraphrase
of the Faustas story, where instead of Dr Faustas the
(41:46):
Devil or whichever version of the story you like, tries
to tempt Adam in and outside of the Garden of
Eden by showing him the future of humanity, including the
Pharaohs of Egypt, the French Revolution, and a strange dystopian future.
So there is some science fiction in there for you,
and many more historical events in places, but I don't
(42:07):
want to spoil the whole thing anyway. Really love the show, guys,
keep it up. Now that it's summer, I'm at two
episodes a day. I know I have too much free time,
but what can you do? Cheers Matthias from Hungary. Oh,
that's awesome. Thanks for thanks for writing in and so Matthias,
and links to three different English translations of this play.
I was not familiar with whatever you call it, epic
(42:28):
poem play. I was not familiar with it, but I
I looked up some of these translations, and there's some
good stuff in it. So there's one translation from J. C. W.
Horn in nineteen sixty three, and there's a scene where
where Lucifer or the Devil, and Adam travel together into
space so that we get we get space travel, and
(42:49):
Lucifer says, so high are we now risen from the site?
First fades the beautiful, and then the great and mighty.
To let length. Not else remains to us than mathematics, cold, remote,
And then Adam says, now fade the stars behind us.
As we fly, I see no end, I feel no obstacle,
(43:11):
without love, without conflict? What is life here? All is
cold and terror Lucifer. Then Lucifer says, if thus far
only thou hast the heart to go then turn we
back and play amid the dust. That's beautiful. Yeah, the
Devil's taunting humans into space exploration, like, oh, you're too
scared to go into space? Well why don't you? You're
(43:33):
scared because space makes it seem like the only thing
that really exists as cold mathematics, Well why don't why
don't you go play in the dirt? Uh? And then
I checked out one of the other translations by somebody
called Auto Tom Shay And in the final scene, it
ends with the I don't think spoilers matter for a
hundred year old epic play, but so this is the
(43:55):
final scene warning within it ends with the creator, the Lord,
giving exhortation to Adam and Eve in their banishment from
the Garden of Eden, and the Lord says, I told
you man, fight, trust and be full of hope. Wow,
I'm so glad this was brought to our attention. This
is this is some really cool stuff that I had
just had no knowledge of. Yeah. Absolutely, I don't think
(44:17):
I've ever heard of this at all. So so thank
you so much, Matthias. I might I might have to
dive in alright, Well, speaking of outer space, I do
want to read this one from j D um and
this is in response to our episode about the star Lack. Hey, guys,
I've been binging on your podcast since the two thousand
nineteen Christmas holiday, which seems quite a long time ago.
(44:40):
If the most important thing I can do is to
rate and review you, where do I go to do that?
I currently pull your shows from the the I Heart
Radio side, and there doesn't appear to be a place
to rate and review you. All right, well, well's let's
let's tackle this first. We we do have to realize that, yes,
not every platform is going to provide you the opportunity
to rate, review and subscribe. Um. So, you know, don't
(45:03):
worry about it if it's not an option, But if
it is an option, it is something you can do
to help us out. Now onto the fun stuff, uh.
J D writes on your most recent post on the
star lak. Yes, there is a phenomenon where the earth
opens up and swallows you whole. And no, not earthquakes,
but sinkholes. This is a great point because sinkholes can
be incredibly dramatic. Um. So this is this is actually
(45:27):
a kind of a hole in in our research because
I can I can well imagine sinkholes, definitely helping to
inform in places this idea of the earth swallowing people totally.
And then the second point the j D brings up
not even a passing mention of dune worms. Does anything
about the star Lack not remind me of dune worms? Hell,
(45:49):
you even made a joke, a spice joke toward the end.
Am I missing something here? Um? Well, thank you for
complaining that we didn't talk about Done enough. Yeah, as
uh I I do. I do need to point out
that I was tempted to talk about the sand worms
of Iracus multiple times, but I was like, no, this
(46:09):
is about the star Lack, like, this is the Starlac,
the Starlacks time to shine. This is Star Wars time
right now, not Done time. However, we do have a
couple of Science of Done episodes in the back catalog,
one of which really gets into sandworms science and different
commentators breakdown of sandworms science and what is actually in
(46:30):
the works of Frank Herbert Um. So go back and
listen to those if you're interested. I know that since
we're gonna have this exciting new adaptation um of the
first half of the novel come out really in just
a few months. Um, I'm certainly excited to return to
the world of Done, so be on the lookout. We'll
probably bust those Done episodes back into the vault again
(46:54):
so people can can listen to them a little closer
to this new movie. And there are some additional Done
related topics we can discuss on the show, for sure. Yeah,
so it gets your hooks ready? What do they call
the climbing hooks that they used to saddle up the sandworms? Oh?
That the exact terminology is failing me now, but but
don't worry. I'm gonna bone up here in the most ahead,
(47:15):
all right. J D finishes out by saying, the episodes
on staring and pointing you recently put out are the
poster children for your brand of podcast, very clever liberal arts,
synthesis of ancient art and behavior that explains some of
the stuff that not only happens today, but that we
all do and react to. Still thinking about some of
the items you raised on those episodes, j D, Oh,
(47:36):
thanks glad you liked them. All right, Well, Carney is
beginning to explode again, and that's his way of letting
us know that our time here is at an end.
But again, uh, you know, we we don't have time
to read everything that we receive here on the show.
(47:56):
We don't have time to respond to everybody individually, but
we continue to enjoy um and and learn from to
benefit from your insight into the topics we discussed on
the show every week, So keep them coming and we
will keep reading them in the meantime. If you like
to check out other episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
you can find them wherever you get your podcasts and
(48:16):
wherever that happens to be if the form, if the
particular platform allows it, rate, review, and subscribe. 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 to Blow Your Mind is
(48:46):
production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for My
Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you're listening to your favorite shows. B B B
Boy Pressing sad point four Part
Stuff To Blow Your Mind News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Lamb
Joe McCormick
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