November 7, 2022 • 24 mins
Once more, it's time for a weekly dose of Stuff to Blow Your Mind and Weirdhouse Cinema listener mail...
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My
Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Listener mail. This is Robert lamb uh So. Hey, it's
just me this week. Joe is out on parental leaves,
so I'm gonna try and tackle the old male bag
here just by myself and see how it goes. All right,
(00:30):
This first one comes to me from Brett. Brett writes
in and says, greetings, Rob, Joe, and Seth. First off,
congratulations to the McCormick family on their wonderful new addition. Yes, indeed,
congrats again to Joe and family. I was actually out
walking in the neighborhood just a day or two after
the birth, and they have the whole family happened to
(00:52):
be driving by me while I was walking around, so
I got to peek in the back seat and actually
see the baby, So that was pretty cool. Anyway. Brett
continues longtime listener here, and nearly every episode makes me
want to write in with thoughts or comments, and I
do frequently chime in on the discussion module. The discussion
module for everyone out there, that's the Facebook group for
(01:12):
this show. We don't really do much on social media.
These days, Uh, you know, because social media. But we
do have that Facebook group, the Stuff to Bow your
Mind discussion module. You can go and request access to
that and basically if you just know the name of
the podcast, you can get in there. We also have
a discord group and if you email us and we'll
send to the link for that so you can join
(01:33):
up there. And really the only other presence we have
online these days is the letterboxed l E T T
E R b o x d dot com account. Our
muser name there is Weird House, and that's just about
the Weird House Cinema episodes. Anyway, I'll stop interrupting Brett
here because Brett continues. The series on goats brought to
mind a favorite character with goat qualities, that of the
(01:56):
poet Martin Silenus from the Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons, who,
when battling writer's block, paid a body sculptor to transform
him into a satyr and spent ten randy years in
this form looking for his muse. Only the true artists
suffer for their art. Keep up the great work, Brett.
I had completely forgotten about this. I read the first
(02:19):
Hyperion book and uh, and and very much enjoyed it,
but didn't press on with the series. Uh, there are
definitely some memorable parts in that book that that's stuck
with me. But I am totally blinking on this, so
I don't know if this was a big part of
the book, if this was just a sort of an
offhand mention of something interesting and weird, or if perhaps
this is something from a book I haven't read yet.
(02:45):
All right, so this is that we're going to receive
a fair number of goat emails here, a lot. I mean,
we did a three part series on goats, and then
of course we have another episode that came out subsequently
that concerns goats. So keep the goat related email coming.
We'll detinue to read it, all right. This next one
comes to us from M Well I have seen I had.
(03:06):
I don't think I copied the name of this individual,
but at any rate, this listener writes in and says, hi, Robert,
Joe and Seth. I will try to keep this short
because I am a poor writer. Anyway. The Radio Lab
podcast did an episode on the Galapagos Islands and shared
the interesting but sad details about the Judas goats. Basically,
when the island is covered in goats. It's easy to
find them, but as you exterminate more and more, the
(03:29):
remaining are hard to get. Judas goats have entered the game.
And then they include a bulleted list here, find a goat,
sterilize and put a tracker on it, let it loose,
wait about a week or two, and then track down
the judaiscoat. Judas goats will have found more goats. Exterminate
all the goats, but the judascote. Wait about a week
or two, then track down the judascoat. Judas goat will
(03:50):
have found more goats. Exterminate all the goats, but the
Judas goat. You get the idea, and that is the
sad and lonely life of a Judas goat. And they
included a link to the podcast episode. Yes, now that
it's been brought to my attention, I do vaguely remember
this episode of Radio Lab from from I think a
number of years back, but I remember it being a
(04:10):
good one now. But yeah, at the time, I had
not been to the Clap of Ghost and did not
really anticipated it was a place I would ever get
to go to, so maybe it didn't have that personal
connection with me. At the time, but I certainly check
that out if you want to, if you want to
hear more on the use of Judicis coasts in the
Galapago Silence. All right, let's see what we have next
(04:34):
in this very goat themed episode of Stuff to Blow
Your Mind. A listener mail this one comes to us
from Oliver. Oliver writes in and says, Hi, Robert and Joe,
I'm a big fan of the podcast and glad there's
a topic I can touch on. I grew up in Nimben,
a small rural town in the northern Rivers of New
(04:54):
South Wales, Australia, where my parents had plenty of mountainous acreage.
For quite a few years, we had a small flock
of goats to help with land clearing and vegetation control.
We would also select a goat to eat each year
or so. I have Fijian heritage and love the goat
curry my dad would make. It's got to be one
of my favorite foods. Anyway, one time in high school,
(05:17):
I was on school holidays and was home with my brothers.
We suddenly heard a scream that to this day was
the most blood curdling and heart racing I've ever heard.
It sounded like a mixture between a humans and goats,
and it was coming from where the goats were grazing.
My brothers and I rushed down to find one of
our adults stuck in a tree with her hoof lodged
(05:39):
between two branches that connected at a y shape. The
screams were ear piercing and almost physically painful up close.
We worked to lift her weight up off the hoof
and dislodged her. We suspect she got into this predicament
by standing on her rear legs with her front legs
pressed against the tree when grazing up high. One leg
must have slipped and between those two branches, trapping her.
(06:02):
Listening to these episodes reminded me of all the fun
that comes with looking after goats, and I miss playing
with them when I was a kid. Thank you for
reigniting my goating memories. Keep on blowing minds, Oliver. Alright,
this next one comes to us from Nyara Lethotep on Discord.
(06:23):
I believe again our Discord group. If you want to
join it, shoot me an email and I'll shoot you
the link. Uh. They write, there was a Monty python
writer's argument about whether a joke is funnier with a
sheep or a goat. I think the goat won by
a beard. To your question about the biblical bias against goats,
I think it comes down to nature. Goats wander sheep
(06:46):
follow religion wants followers. Of course, I like that. You
ask if there was a third option. Fortunately there is,
meet the deep g e e P. There are multiple
examples of goat sheep hybrids. Wikipedia claims there is also
a goat sheep chimera. And cats go to the dark
side of the moon when no one can find them.
(07:06):
It is a well known fact. Ah. These are excellent points. Yes,
I I don't know that I was super aware of
the geep, but indeed that they do exist. Uh. I
would agree with Monty Python. I mean when in concerning
matters of matters of humor and the absurd. Uh they
are and we're experts, So yeah, I would say a
(07:28):
goat is inherently funnier than a sheep, in the same
way that cheese is funnier than butter. Uh. And then
there's just no denying it. And yes, cats going to
the dark side of the moon where no one can
find them I believe this stems from some of the
short fiction of of HP. Lovecraft, though in all likelihood
he he got it from somewhere as well. I mean,
these folk traditions of black cats and the nature of
(07:50):
cats certainly goes way back. All right, let's see, do
we have something else about goats? We do have more goats.
Listener mail here to read this one, says Hi, Robert
and Joe. This one, by the way, is from Susan.
I love the show. I ate up the Goats slash
(08:10):
Devil episodes. For a couple of years, I was a
groom an exercise writer at a fox hunting barn outside
of Columbus, Georgia. This hunt used a herd of about
two hundred goats and their smell to desynsitize the foxhounds
too deer. Foxhounds normally are distracted by deer and chase
deer instead of the fox. The master of hounds had
(08:31):
discovered that if the hounds had a herd of goats
living all around the kennels, they were not excited by
deer scent in the field. So far as I know,
he was unique in having solved this problem this way.
He imported a special long haired goat type Egyptian goats
and pictures included here for me anyway, maybe because they
(08:52):
are super stinky. The herd roamed around the kennels and
stables at will. When they ambled into the stables every
pre dawn, it's sounded like a crowd of farty, sneezing,
coughing old people. It's not only their calls that sound human. Again,
thanks for the great show, great fun and info, Susan Oh. Now,
I was really fascinated by this. I've never heard this,
(09:14):
and I'm not super familiar with the practices of a
fox hunting and so forth, but this, this is fascinating.
Thanks for sending this in. And I love the the
tidbit about the farti sneezing, coughing fits of the goat
and how this also made them sound more human. And
again I was I'm reminded of the sea lions of
(09:35):
the gladigot silence and how they make a lot of this,
a lot of similar noises and can often sound very
human in this regard. All right, we have more goat
related listener mail here. This one gets a little more
into I guess demonology angelology. Um. This one comes to
(09:58):
us from Michael from Tasmania, Australia. Michael writes in and says,
just listening to the pod and I'm sure there will
be plenty of feedback on Joe's pronunciation of Azazel the
Fallen Angel, but couldn't help myself. And then this is
rather interesting and I imagine Joe would want me to
read this. Um So Michael points out Azazel actually pronounced Osazel,
(10:24):
not Azazel, is the name of the demon in the
Denzel Washington, John Goodman and Torres from Star Trek Voyager.
Don't know the actor's name off the top of my head. Sorry,
movie Fallen, which is a great supernatural thriller if you
guys haven't seen it, not sure if it has aged well,
but I recall thoroughly enjoying it at the time. I
love your guys work. Been a listener for about eight
(10:46):
years now and the Bicameral Mind episodes are still my
absolute favorite. Michael. Yeah, thanks for the note here. I mean,
I know in Webster's both pronunciations are provided, but yeah,
it sounds like maybe one is maybe more authentic to
the original usage. As for the movie Fallen from look
at that, it's uh, this one would I guess in
(11:08):
some ways be eligible for weird House the way we've
been doing it. But yeah, it's been a long time
since I have seen this one. I did see it
at one point, and it has it had a pretty
great cast looking at it now, I mean, because of
course had Denzel Washington, John Goodman, but also Donald Sutherland,
James Gandalfini, who else, Robert Joy Who's played a lot
(11:29):
of creepy characters over the years. So um. But that
being said, I don't have very strong memories about this one.
I kind of remember it just being on at the time.
Maybe I rented it, but yeah, it's been a very
long time. Um. Now, it does stem from a period
where I think we did have multiple weirder Denzel Washington pictures.
(11:52):
I know that Joe and I have frequently discussed, uh,
at least offhand, how weird and fun Virtue City from was.
That was the one where, if memory serves, Denzel Washington
was a cop and Russell Crowe played like a blue
blooded clone. That is also kind of a patchwork creation
(12:18):
based on all the serial killers of history or something
like that, kind of a kind of a strange plot
that I remember it being vaguely fun and kind of
an action mid nineties manner. So at any rate, uh,
maybe I'll have to go back and look at some
of these films in more detail and indeed see how
they hold up or don't hold up. Alright, This next
(12:46):
one comes to us from Adam Adam Writeson and says,
high folks, I loved your first episode on goats and demons.
I heard you mentioned that you would reference the Hebrew
Bible and the next one, and I figured you would
touch on the goat sent to as a zel or
a zazel, so I wanted to give some deeper context
(13:06):
on that subject. Firstly, the act of transferring the sins
of Israel too into the goat and sending it off
is still within Jewish practice today, but it is somewhat different.
Around Yam Kapoor, the day of Atonement, there is a
practice called cappara in which a chicken is usually waved
over someone's head, and many Jews will do this in
a humane way that doesn't hurt the chicken, transferring one
(13:29):
sins into that chicken. Then, though we don't wish for
the chicken to suffer pain, that chicken is still slaughtered.
But Jewish slaughtering practices require a quick and painless death.
Thus your sins are removed for those who wish not
to harm an animal at all. Some will wave money
over an individual's head, transferring one sins into the money,
and then the money is spent wiping you clean of sin. Oh,
(13:51):
now this is very fascinating. This kind of makes me.
This reminds me of some other practices and kind of
makes me want to do a magical money episode in
the future. Anyway, Adam continues separately. I wanted to mention
that Biblical scholars are not clear whether the goat in
the Torah that is sent to as Azel or Azazel
(14:11):
is sent to an entity or a place. It's not
definitely known whether as Zel Azazel was a demon or whatnot. Originally, However,
if you look at the name Ozazel Azazel, they're important features. Firstly,
the L at the end of the name is not
like the L that's e L in the English found
at the end of other Theophoric names denoting the name
(14:34):
of God or another deity. This L is not L
with a case, so it's he's pointing out it. It's
a lower case, not upper case. It's not capitalized the
spelling of the Hebrew letters for is azel or azazel
is and then and then he writes a n zayn
alif zay in Lahmed. Most interestingly is that this name
(14:59):
seem ms to be a combination of the word for
goat as a and z n and the Aramaic word
for walk go uh azel a lefsayan lamed um. So
that so at the very least, the goat is sent
on a quote unquote goat walk or azazel. So thanks
(15:22):
for all you do, Adam. So this was very fascinating
to hear. I love these these breakdowns of the origins
of some of these words, and again how words and
symbols change over time. But the idea of this, uh,
this name that often gets reinterpreted as kind of a
spooky demon name, uh, you know, to to sort of
(15:42):
fall back on this sort of duality of fronts and pronunciation,
like like Azazel sounds very regal and terrifying, and you
can imagine some sort of demonic being. But to think
of uh sending a demon out on an asazel a
goat walk to nowhere, that's that's a little bit funny,
kind of go back to the money python thing. Once
(16:03):
you cast the demon into the goat. You've not only
maybe robbed it of its powers, but you've also made
it a little comical. You've put it in a vessel
that is inherently funny. All right, And now we're gonna
get into a couple of non goat listener mails. This
first one, UM, I think it's too in response to
(16:26):
an older episode. This may have been a listener mail, UM,
but this is from listener Charlie. Charlie writes and and says, Hello,
I'm very behind on the pod, but I just listened
to an email you read of mine and wanted to
clear out the confusion you had on boys. This is
not b O Y S but b O I s
now Memory serves this was a situation where someone had
(16:47):
written in using this terminology and we were a little
less familiar with it and maybe had a question or two.
So anyway, Charlie is here with some answers. Charlie writes,
I hail from the tumbler corner of the Internet. Do
recommend for those of weak constitution. You've been warned, and
it is generally accepted there that boy with an eye
is gender non specific or neutral, or at least it
(17:09):
was around. Now the trend seems to be gendered term
g N g N standing for gender neutral. For example,
you might call someone a quote unquote skeletor girl g
N to note their appreciation for the bewilderingly buff skeleton
man from he man within a fan community, who you
(17:30):
quote unquote girl for typically ascribes personality traits based on
that character. It is not the same as being coded
as that character. You could absolutely be both quote unquote
skeletor coded and a quote unquote skeletor girl and this
would have nothing to do with your gender presentation. Sorry
for the skeletor tangent. Didn't see that one coming. Thanks Charlie, No,
(17:54):
thank you Charlie for a little illumination here on the terminology,
and of course any discussions of skeletor are always welcome.
All right, we have one more here. This is a
listener male in response to a recent episode of Weird
House Cinema. In fact, it's response to one of the
(18:15):
guest co host episodes that we've been running, uh daring
Joe's parental leave. This one comes to us from Dan.
Dan writes and and says, dear Robert and David Um
just listen to your episode on The Gate, and I
thought David Streepy did a great job. I look forward
to him coming back on Weird House Cinema in the
future to discuss something else. The first time I ever
(18:36):
saw The Gate was back in middle school when I
was roughly the same age as Glenn and Terry. On
Saturday Afternoon television in the late nineties. The scene where
the demon versions of Glenn and Now's parents come back
come home and Dad picks up Glenn and says you've
been bad is one of those scenes that has lingered
in the back of my mind ever since, as has
(18:57):
the many scenes involving the Gromlins at hacking the kids.
Funnily enough, I had always thought that it was the
playing of the heavy metal record backwards that actually summons
the demons. This, I think was also my first exposure
to the myth about if you play heavy metal records
backwards you can hear quote unquote hidden satanic messages. Quick
(19:18):
note about Terry's bedroom wall. The black and white pin
drawn poster you see amongst the Iron Maiden and Judas
Priests posters is the cover of a compilation album by
the psychobilly band the Cramps. Also, you can briefly see
the cover of another Cramps compilation album on his drum set.
This is the one that is lime green with a
(19:39):
smiling zombie like creature. So Terry's got great taste in music.
Congratulations and best wishes to Joe. I'm sure he can't
wait until the day he can show his daughter Attack
of the Crab Monsters without her getting nightmares. Best wishes
and happy Halloween. Dan. Yeah, okay, so just still see
the sponsor to some of this. So first of all,
thanks for the the insight into Terry's bedroom and all
(20:01):
the bands he was into. Uh, this makes me appreciate
the design effort that went into creating that set even
more um and and again, just a terrific film the Gate.
I really enjoyed it. And moving on to some of
the other issues. Yeah, it was great to have Dave
Street beyond the show. Uh. Dave's been a friend of
mine for many years. He's he and his wife frequently
(20:24):
watch episodes of the nineties Outer Limits with uh with
my wife and me, so we we have that and
we used to watch MST three k's together all the time.
So our appreciation for weird movies goes way back, and yeah,
so I just if you do enjoy what what Dave
had to share and Dave's take on things again, check
out the Talk and Tofu podcast that he does with
(20:46):
his wife Becky, And yeah. As as for Joe, I
I too look forward to the day when he can
show his daughter Attack of the Crab Monsters um and
in general, I think it is going to be neat
to see where things go with the show over the
next few years, because I know when I became a parent,
I mean, it changes some of the things you're into.
It makes you rethink and old pieces of media that
(21:10):
you used to enjoy. It makes you rediscover things from
your childhood and then re examine them through the child's interests.
And then you find yourself also curious about things that
were never part of your childhood but are part of theirs.
So suddenly you're learning about Pokemon, You're finding out what
a lick a tongue is, and so forth. So it'll
(21:30):
be interesting to see what happens. I wonder if Weird
House Cinema will I don't think it would become completely
child centric, obviously, but I look forward to seeing what
sort of films Joe brings to the table as as
his daughter, maybe reignites some of his appreciation for these
childhood films and maybe we were already seeing a little
of that, uh in the run up to the birth.
(21:53):
All right, well that's all I have to read here today,
but certainly keep them coming in. Um, I think the
way timelines coming together, there'll be maybe one more listener
Mail without Joe, And so if the mail bag is
full enough at that point, maybe I'll do another one
of these. Maybe not, maybe we'll skip it and do
something else and then have a nice fat bag of
(22:13):
listener mail to look at when Joe comes back to
the show. But at any rate, Yeah, let me just
remind everyone that Listener Mail normally runs on Mondays and
the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed and you
can find it feed wherever you get your podcasts. Um,
we do core episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind
on Tuesdays and Thursdays, on Wednesday's Short Form Artifact or
(22:35):
Monster Fact episode, and on Fridays, That's weird. How cinema
time time to set aside most serious concerns and just
talk about a weird film. Let's see what else at
the outset. I mentioned the discord and the Facebook group.
I mentioned the letterboxed to count. Um oh, there is
still merch. I often forget to highlight the merch, but yes,
we have a te public store for Stuff to Blow
(22:56):
your Mind. There's also some Weird House Cinema merch in
there as well, if you need a quicker way to
get to that. If you got to Stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com, that'll shoot you over to the
I Heart listening for this show. And there is a
tab there for the merg store for our store, so
you can check all that stuff out. I mean, it's
all that stuff is is just for fun. But if
you would like any kind of merchandise with either the
(23:18):
Stuff to Blow your Mind logo, the Weird House Cinema logo,
or just some other fun designs we've come up over
the years, including that the rub the fur t shirt
and so forth, well that is where you'll find them.
Thanks as always to Seth Nicholas Johnson for producing Stuff
to Blow Your Mind, and he'll be joining me on
some more episodes as well during Joe's Parenthal leave. And finally,
(23:39):
if you want to reach out to us via email,
well here's how you do it, you can email us
at contact at stuff to blow your Mind dot com.
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of I
Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit
(24:00):
i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My
Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Listener mail. This is Robert lamb uh So. Hey, it's
just me this week. Joe is out on parental leaves,
so I'm gonna try and tackle the old male bag
here just by myself and see how it goes. All right,
(00:30):
This first one comes to me from Brett. Brett writes
in and says, greetings, Rob, Joe, and Seth. First off,
congratulations to the McCormick family on their wonderful new addition. Yes, indeed,
congrats again to Joe and family. I was actually out
walking in the neighborhood just a day or two after
the birth, and they have the whole family happened to
(00:52):
be driving by me while I was walking around, so
I got to peek in the back seat and actually
see the baby, So that was pretty cool. Anyway. Brett
continues longtime listener here, and nearly every episode makes me
want to write in with thoughts or comments, and I
do frequently chime in on the discussion module. The discussion
module for everyone out there, that's the Facebook group for
(01:12):
this show. We don't really do much on social media.
These days, Uh, you know, because social media. But we
do have that Facebook group, the Stuff to Bow your
Mind discussion module. You can go and request access to
that and basically if you just know the name of
the podcast, you can get in there. We also have
a discord group and if you email us and we'll
send to the link for that so you can join
(01:33):
up there. And really the only other presence we have
online these days is the letterboxed l E T T
E R b o x d dot com account. Our
muser name there is Weird House, and that's just about
the Weird House Cinema episodes. Anyway, I'll stop interrupting Brett
here because Brett continues. The series on goats brought to
mind a favorite character with goat qualities, that of the
(01:56):
poet Martin Silenus from the Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons, who,
when battling writer's block, paid a body sculptor to transform
him into a satyr and spent ten randy years in
this form looking for his muse. Only the true artists
suffer for their art. Keep up the great work, Brett.
I had completely forgotten about this. I read the first
(02:19):
Hyperion book and uh, and and very much enjoyed it,
but didn't press on with the series. Uh, there are
definitely some memorable parts in that book that that's stuck
with me. But I am totally blinking on this, so
I don't know if this was a big part of
the book, if this was just a sort of an
offhand mention of something interesting and weird, or if perhaps
this is something from a book I haven't read yet.
(02:45):
All right, so this is that we're going to receive
a fair number of goat emails here, a lot. I mean,
we did a three part series on goats, and then
of course we have another episode that came out subsequently
that concerns goats. So keep the goat related email coming.
We'll detinue to read it, all right. This next one
comes to us from M Well I have seen I had.
(03:06):
I don't think I copied the name of this individual,
but at any rate, this listener writes in and says, hi, Robert,
Joe and Seth. I will try to keep this short
because I am a poor writer. Anyway. The Radio Lab
podcast did an episode on the Galapagos Islands and shared
the interesting but sad details about the Judas goats. Basically,
when the island is covered in goats. It's easy to
find them, but as you exterminate more and more, the
(03:29):
remaining are hard to get. Judas goats have entered the game.
And then they include a bulleted list here, find a goat,
sterilize and put a tracker on it, let it loose,
wait about a week or two, and then track down
the judaiscoat. Judas goats will have found more goats. Exterminate
all the goats, but the judascote. Wait about a week
or two, then track down the judascoat. Judas goat will
(03:50):
have found more goats. Exterminate all the goats, but the
Judas goat. You get the idea, and that is the
sad and lonely life of a Judas goat. And they
included a link to the podcast episode. Yes, now that
it's been brought to my attention, I do vaguely remember
this episode of Radio Lab from from I think a
number of years back, but I remember it being a
(04:10):
good one now. But yeah, at the time, I had
not been to the Clap of Ghost and did not
really anticipated it was a place I would ever get
to go to, so maybe it didn't have that personal
connection with me. At the time, but I certainly check
that out if you want to, if you want to
hear more on the use of Judicis coasts in the
Galapago Silence. All right, let's see what we have next
(04:34):
in this very goat themed episode of Stuff to Blow
Your Mind. A listener mail this one comes to us
from Oliver. Oliver writes in and says, Hi, Robert and Joe,
I'm a big fan of the podcast and glad there's
a topic I can touch on. I grew up in Nimben,
a small rural town in the northern Rivers of New
(04:54):
South Wales, Australia, where my parents had plenty of mountainous acreage.
For quite a few years, we had a small flock
of goats to help with land clearing and vegetation control.
We would also select a goat to eat each year
or so. I have Fijian heritage and love the goat
curry my dad would make. It's got to be one
of my favorite foods. Anyway, one time in high school,
(05:17):
I was on school holidays and was home with my brothers.
We suddenly heard a scream that to this day was
the most blood curdling and heart racing I've ever heard.
It sounded like a mixture between a humans and goats,
and it was coming from where the goats were grazing.
My brothers and I rushed down to find one of
our adults stuck in a tree with her hoof lodged
(05:39):
between two branches that connected at a y shape. The
screams were ear piercing and almost physically painful up close.
We worked to lift her weight up off the hoof
and dislodged her. We suspect she got into this predicament
by standing on her rear legs with her front legs
pressed against the tree when grazing up high. One leg
must have slipped and between those two branches, trapping her.
(06:02):
Listening to these episodes reminded me of all the fun
that comes with looking after goats, and I miss playing
with them when I was a kid. Thank you for
reigniting my goating memories. Keep on blowing minds, Oliver. Alright,
this next one comes to us from Nyara Lethotep on Discord.
(06:23):
I believe again our Discord group. If you want to
join it, shoot me an email and I'll shoot you
the link. Uh. They write, there was a Monty python
writer's argument about whether a joke is funnier with a
sheep or a goat. I think the goat won by
a beard. To your question about the biblical bias against goats,
I think it comes down to nature. Goats wander sheep
(06:46):
follow religion wants followers. Of course, I like that. You
ask if there was a third option. Fortunately there is,
meet the deep g e e P. There are multiple
examples of goat sheep hybrids. Wikipedia claims there is also
a goat sheep chimera. And cats go to the dark
side of the moon when no one can find them.
(07:06):
It is a well known fact. Ah. These are excellent points. Yes,
I I don't know that I was super aware of
the geep, but indeed that they do exist. Uh. I
would agree with Monty Python. I mean when in concerning
matters of matters of humor and the absurd. Uh they
are and we're experts, So yeah, I would say a
(07:28):
goat is inherently funnier than a sheep, in the same
way that cheese is funnier than butter. Uh. And then
there's just no denying it. And yes, cats going to
the dark side of the moon where no one can
find them I believe this stems from some of the
short fiction of of HP. Lovecraft, though in all likelihood
he he got it from somewhere as well. I mean,
these folk traditions of black cats and the nature of
(07:50):
cats certainly goes way back. All right, let's see, do
we have something else about goats? We do have more goats.
Listener mail here to read this one, says Hi, Robert
and Joe. This one, by the way, is from Susan.
I love the show. I ate up the Goats slash
(08:10):
Devil episodes. For a couple of years, I was a
groom an exercise writer at a fox hunting barn outside
of Columbus, Georgia. This hunt used a herd of about
two hundred goats and their smell to desynsitize the foxhounds
too deer. Foxhounds normally are distracted by deer and chase
deer instead of the fox. The master of hounds had
(08:31):
discovered that if the hounds had a herd of goats
living all around the kennels, they were not excited by
deer scent in the field. So far as I know,
he was unique in having solved this problem this way.
He imported a special long haired goat type Egyptian goats
and pictures included here for me anyway, maybe because they
(08:52):
are super stinky. The herd roamed around the kennels and
stables at will. When they ambled into the stables every
pre dawn, it's sounded like a crowd of farty, sneezing,
coughing old people. It's not only their calls that sound human. Again,
thanks for the great show, great fun and info, Susan Oh. Now,
I was really fascinated by this. I've never heard this,
(09:14):
and I'm not super familiar with the practices of a
fox hunting and so forth, but this, this is fascinating.
Thanks for sending this in. And I love the the
tidbit about the farti sneezing, coughing fits of the goat
and how this also made them sound more human. And
again I was I'm reminded of the sea lions of
(09:35):
the gladigot silence and how they make a lot of this,
a lot of similar noises and can often sound very
human in this regard. All right, we have more goat
related listener mail here. This one gets a little more
into I guess demonology angelology. Um. This one comes to
(09:58):
us from Michael from Tasmania, Australia. Michael writes in and says,
just listening to the pod and I'm sure there will
be plenty of feedback on Joe's pronunciation of Azazel the
Fallen Angel, but couldn't help myself. And then this is
rather interesting and I imagine Joe would want me to
read this. Um So Michael points out Azazel actually pronounced Osazel,
(10:24):
not Azazel, is the name of the demon in the
Denzel Washington, John Goodman and Torres from Star Trek Voyager.
Don't know the actor's name off the top of my head. Sorry,
movie Fallen, which is a great supernatural thriller if you
guys haven't seen it, not sure if it has aged well,
but I recall thoroughly enjoying it at the time. I
love your guys work. Been a listener for about eight
(10:46):
years now and the Bicameral Mind episodes are still my
absolute favorite. Michael. Yeah, thanks for the note here. I mean,
I know in Webster's both pronunciations are provided, but yeah,
it sounds like maybe one is maybe more authentic to
the original usage. As for the movie Fallen from look
at that, it's uh, this one would I guess in
(11:08):
some ways be eligible for weird House the way we've
been doing it. But yeah, it's been a long time
since I have seen this one. I did see it
at one point, and it has it had a pretty
great cast looking at it now, I mean, because of
course had Denzel Washington, John Goodman, but also Donald Sutherland,
James Gandalfini, who else, Robert Joy Who's played a lot
(11:29):
of creepy characters over the years. So um. But that
being said, I don't have very strong memories about this one.
I kind of remember it just being on at the time.
Maybe I rented it, but yeah, it's been a very
long time. Um. Now, it does stem from a period
where I think we did have multiple weirder Denzel Washington pictures.
(11:52):
I know that Joe and I have frequently discussed, uh,
at least offhand, how weird and fun Virtue City from was.
That was the one where, if memory serves, Denzel Washington
was a cop and Russell Crowe played like a blue
blooded clone. That is also kind of a patchwork creation
(12:18):
based on all the serial killers of history or something
like that, kind of a kind of a strange plot
that I remember it being vaguely fun and kind of
an action mid nineties manner. So at any rate, uh,
maybe I'll have to go back and look at some
of these films in more detail and indeed see how
they hold up or don't hold up. Alright, This next
(12:46):
one comes to us from Adam Adam Writeson and says,
high folks, I loved your first episode on goats and demons.
I heard you mentioned that you would reference the Hebrew
Bible and the next one, and I figured you would
touch on the goat sent to as a zel or
a zazel, so I wanted to give some deeper context
(13:06):
on that subject. Firstly, the act of transferring the sins
of Israel too into the goat and sending it off
is still within Jewish practice today, but it is somewhat different.
Around Yam Kapoor, the day of Atonement, there is a
practice called cappara in which a chicken is usually waved
over someone's head, and many Jews will do this in
a humane way that doesn't hurt the chicken, transferring one
(13:29):
sins into that chicken. Then, though we don't wish for
the chicken to suffer pain, that chicken is still slaughtered.
But Jewish slaughtering practices require a quick and painless death.
Thus your sins are removed for those who wish not
to harm an animal at all. Some will wave money
over an individual's head, transferring one sins into the money,
and then the money is spent wiping you clean of sin. Oh,
(13:51):
now this is very fascinating. This kind of makes me.
This reminds me of some other practices and kind of
makes me want to do a magical money episode in
the future. Anyway, Adam continues separately. I wanted to mention
that Biblical scholars are not clear whether the goat in
the Torah that is sent to as Azel or Azazel
(14:11):
is sent to an entity or a place. It's not
definitely known whether as Zel Azazel was a demon or whatnot. Originally, However,
if you look at the name Ozazel Azazel, they're important features. Firstly,
the L at the end of the name is not
like the L that's e L in the English found
at the end of other Theophoric names denoting the name
(14:34):
of God or another deity. This L is not L
with a case, so it's he's pointing out it. It's
a lower case, not upper case. It's not capitalized the
spelling of the Hebrew letters for is azel or azazel
is and then and then he writes a n zayn
alif zay in Lahmed. Most interestingly is that this name
(14:59):
seem ms to be a combination of the word for
goat as a and z n and the Aramaic word
for walk go uh azel a lefsayan lamed um. So
that so at the very least, the goat is sent
on a quote unquote goat walk or azazel. So thanks
(15:22):
for all you do, Adam. So this was very fascinating
to hear. I love these these breakdowns of the origins
of some of these words, and again how words and
symbols change over time. But the idea of this, uh,
this name that often gets reinterpreted as kind of a
spooky demon name, uh, you know, to to sort of
(15:42):
fall back on this sort of duality of fronts and pronunciation,
like like Azazel sounds very regal and terrifying, and you
can imagine some sort of demonic being. But to think
of uh sending a demon out on an asazel a
goat walk to nowhere, that's that's a little bit funny,
kind of go back to the money python thing. Once
(16:03):
you cast the demon into the goat. You've not only
maybe robbed it of its powers, but you've also made
it a little comical. You've put it in a vessel
that is inherently funny. All right, And now we're gonna
get into a couple of non goat listener mails. This
first one, UM, I think it's too in response to
(16:26):
an older episode. This may have been a listener mail, UM,
but this is from listener Charlie. Charlie writes and and says, Hello,
I'm very behind on the pod, but I just listened
to an email you read of mine and wanted to
clear out the confusion you had on boys. This is
not b O Y S but b O I s
now Memory serves this was a situation where someone had
(16:47):
written in using this terminology and we were a little
less familiar with it and maybe had a question or two.
So anyway, Charlie is here with some answers. Charlie writes,
I hail from the tumbler corner of the Internet. Do
recommend for those of weak constitution. You've been warned, and
it is generally accepted there that boy with an eye
is gender non specific or neutral, or at least it
(17:09):
was around. Now the trend seems to be gendered term
g N g N standing for gender neutral. For example,
you might call someone a quote unquote skeletor girl g
N to note their appreciation for the bewilderingly buff skeleton
man from he man within a fan community, who you
(17:30):
quote unquote girl for typically ascribes personality traits based on
that character. It is not the same as being coded
as that character. You could absolutely be both quote unquote
skeletor coded and a quote unquote skeletor girl and this
would have nothing to do with your gender presentation. Sorry
for the skeletor tangent. Didn't see that one coming. Thanks Charlie, No,
(17:54):
thank you Charlie for a little illumination here on the terminology,
and of course any discussions of skeletor are always welcome.
All right, we have one more here. This is a
listener male in response to a recent episode of Weird
House Cinema. In fact, it's response to one of the
(18:15):
guest co host episodes that we've been running, uh daring
Joe's parental leave. This one comes to us from Dan.
Dan writes and and says, dear Robert and David Um
just listen to your episode on The Gate, and I
thought David Streepy did a great job. I look forward
to him coming back on Weird House Cinema in the
future to discuss something else. The first time I ever
(18:36):
saw The Gate was back in middle school when I
was roughly the same age as Glenn and Terry. On
Saturday Afternoon television in the late nineties. The scene where
the demon versions of Glenn and Now's parents come back
come home and Dad picks up Glenn and says you've
been bad is one of those scenes that has lingered
in the back of my mind ever since, as has
(18:57):
the many scenes involving the Gromlins at hacking the kids.
Funnily enough, I had always thought that it was the
playing of the heavy metal record backwards that actually summons
the demons. This, I think was also my first exposure
to the myth about if you play heavy metal records
backwards you can hear quote unquote hidden satanic messages. Quick
(19:18):
note about Terry's bedroom wall. The black and white pin
drawn poster you see amongst the Iron Maiden and Judas
Priests posters is the cover of a compilation album by
the psychobilly band the Cramps. Also, you can briefly see
the cover of another Cramps compilation album on his drum set.
This is the one that is lime green with a
(19:39):
smiling zombie like creature. So Terry's got great taste in music.
Congratulations and best wishes to Joe. I'm sure he can't
wait until the day he can show his daughter Attack
of the Crab Monsters without her getting nightmares. Best wishes
and happy Halloween. Dan. Yeah, okay, so just still see
the sponsor to some of this. So first of all,
thanks for the the insight into Terry's bedroom and all
(20:01):
the bands he was into. Uh, this makes me appreciate
the design effort that went into creating that set even
more um and and again, just a terrific film the Gate.
I really enjoyed it. And moving on to some of
the other issues. Yeah, it was great to have Dave
Street beyond the show. Uh. Dave's been a friend of
mine for many years. He's he and his wife frequently
(20:24):
watch episodes of the nineties Outer Limits with uh with
my wife and me, so we we have that and
we used to watch MST three k's together all the time.
So our appreciation for weird movies goes way back, and yeah,
so I just if you do enjoy what what Dave
had to share and Dave's take on things again, check
out the Talk and Tofu podcast that he does with
(20:46):
his wife Becky, And yeah. As as for Joe, I
I too look forward to the day when he can
show his daughter Attack of the Crab Monsters um and
in general, I think it is going to be neat
to see where things go with the show over the
next few years, because I know when I became a parent,
I mean, it changes some of the things you're into.
It makes you rethink and old pieces of media that
(21:10):
you used to enjoy. It makes you rediscover things from
your childhood and then re examine them through the child's interests.
And then you find yourself also curious about things that
were never part of your childhood but are part of theirs.
So suddenly you're learning about Pokemon, You're finding out what
a lick a tongue is, and so forth. So it'll
(21:30):
be interesting to see what happens. I wonder if Weird
House Cinema will I don't think it would become completely
child centric, obviously, but I look forward to seeing what
sort of films Joe brings to the table as as
his daughter, maybe reignites some of his appreciation for these
childhood films and maybe we were already seeing a little
of that, uh in the run up to the birth.
(21:53):
All right, well that's all I have to read here today,
but certainly keep them coming in. Um, I think the
way timelines coming together, there'll be maybe one more listener
Mail without Joe, And so if the mail bag is
full enough at that point, maybe I'll do another one
of these. Maybe not, maybe we'll skip it and do
something else and then have a nice fat bag of
(22:13):
listener mail to look at when Joe comes back to
the show. But at any rate, Yeah, let me just
remind everyone that Listener Mail normally runs on Mondays and
the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed and you
can find it feed wherever you get your podcasts. Um,
we do core episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind
on Tuesdays and Thursdays, on Wednesday's Short Form Artifact or
(22:35):
Monster Fact episode, and on Fridays, That's weird. How cinema
time time to set aside most serious concerns and just
talk about a weird film. Let's see what else at
the outset. I mentioned the discord and the Facebook group.
I mentioned the letterboxed to count. Um oh, there is
still merch. I often forget to highlight the merch, but yes,
we have a te public store for Stuff to Blow
(22:56):
your Mind. There's also some Weird House Cinema merch in
there as well, if you need a quicker way to
get to that. If you got to Stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com, that'll shoot you over to the
I Heart listening for this show. And there is a
tab there for the merg store for our store, so
you can check all that stuff out. I mean, it's
all that stuff is is just for fun. But if
you would like any kind of merchandise with either the
(23:18):
Stuff to Blow your Mind logo, the Weird House Cinema logo,
or just some other fun designs we've come up over
the years, including that the rub the fur t shirt
and so forth, well that is where you'll find them.
Thanks as always to Seth Nicholas Johnson for producing Stuff
to Blow Your Mind, and he'll be joining me on
some more episodes as well during Joe's Parenthal leave. And finally,
(23:39):
if you want to reach out to us via email,
well here's how you do it, you can email us
at contact at stuff to blow your Mind dot com.
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of I
Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit
(24:00):
i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
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