Listener Mail: Rejoice in the Sun

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

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Listener Mail. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormack.
In today we're bringing you some of the messages you
have sent us are loyal mail bot. Carney is right
here with us. It seems he has developed quite quite
a card shark habit over the last week or so.

(00:25):
He's wearing one of those green visors or wait, is
that what poker players wear? Or is that like accountants
may have gotten that next time. I think I've seen
some card sharks wearing those things. Yeah, well they're trying
to hide their expressions, right, so they wear like a
hat and sunglasses and who knows what else at the table?
Did any poker players just full on wear ski mask?
I think it's frowned upon. I think it's frowned upon.

(00:48):
But I'm sure that this, this new poker habit for
Carney has been inspired by the card playing robots of
Silent Running, one of our favorite films. Oh yeah, that's right,
there's some there's some great card card playing robots in
that one Hue we do and Louis Um those are
some wonderful scenes and in large part because they're like
a little bit they're a little bit clunky, you know,
they're not They're not smooth. Those robots are the way

(01:12):
that they interact with humans in their environment, but in
a way that felt very real, very endearing. I loved it. Well,
that'll come back up later on Robbert. You ready to
jump right in? Should I read this message from Cody?
Go for it? Okay, here is a sort of correction

(01:33):
slash clarification on the Jupiter episode. At least from Cody's perspective,
this starts high Joe plus Robert. I'm currently listening to
part one of the Jupiter episodes, and as a recovering astronomer,
I had to dash off this message when talking about
whether our solar system is unusual or abnormal is compared
to other planetary systems. It is crucial to keep in

(01:55):
mind that the detection techniques that astronomers used to find
extra solar planets preferentially biases their detections toward large planets
close to their parents star. In other words, planets that
tug a lot on their star or include its light
on short periods. And to expand on that a little bit.

(02:15):
So some of the main ways we've had in the
past of checking whether another star has an exoplanet orbiting
it is by things like the radial velocity test, which
checks to see if the host star is wobbling basically
by the gravitational pull of a large planet orbiting it,
or by the yeah, as Cody alludes to hear, the

(02:35):
occlusion of its light. So like, if there is a
transit where a planet passes in front of a star
from our perspective, we will proceed that as a brief
dimming of the star as the planet passes between the
star and our observation technology. Uh and and there's some
other methods as well, but those are some of the
main ones. And you can see why it would be
easier to detect planets that are larger and have certain

(02:58):
types of certain types of orbital orientations based on those
sorts of methods. But Cody continues, in fact, the upper
limit on the orbital periods for the current detection regime
is roughly half the period of a typical postdoctoral fellowship
go figure. So it just isn't accurate to say that
our Solar system is unusual, since we simply don't know.

(03:19):
It may in fact be the most common kind of
planetary system, but we are as yet completely incapable of
detecting another one like it, Cody. So thanks for that, Cody.
So I would say, unless it got left out by
accidents somehow, I'm pretty sure in the episode we did
talk about the idea that our current detection methods for
exoplanets could very well be biasing our surveys of what

(03:41):
types of planets are out there. Though I believe, if
I understand correctly, Cody is putting it more strongly here,
saying not just as we did that they could be
biasing our picture of how common different planetary structures are,
but that they almost certainly are biasing it. Fair enough,

(04:03):
all right, here's another one. This one comes to us
from Joshua Joshua rides Hi, Robert and Joe, longtime listener,
first time writing. Really love the show and the symbiosis
you create between all the best subjects. I was listening
to the Jupiter episodes and heard you both questioning how
big the stone Chronus uranus swallowed in place of the

(04:23):
baby Zeus. Well, I knew I heard about it before,
and sure enough, there is a historical sculpture held as
being the same stone see attached picture. Apparently apparently this
is it also known as the umphal of stone. It's
an example of a beatless or sacred stone. The mythological
record says the stone was also used by Zeus to

(04:45):
decide where the center of the world was no surprise,
he picked Delphi and that's where he placed this stone
to market and yeah, indeed you can look up images
of this. There's a Wikipedia article on this that has
some yeah, decent music, the photographs of them. Um Anyway,
they continue. It's certainly bigger than I ever imagined a
baby god would be. But I guess when you're dealing

(05:07):
with deities it's probably going to be a bit subjective.
Thanks guys, keep doing what do you do your friend, Josh? Oh,
thanks Josh. It looks kind of like a beautifully decorated
giant stone bullet. Here's the question. Was it decorated before
it was ingested by a god or did it? Was
it inscribed like this by virtue of being ingested by

(05:29):
a god? Also, you're saying not carved by a human
in recognition of having been vomited up by Chronus. But
it was actually carved by Cronus's guts, like when he
swallows a stone it starts making little lacy patterns on
the things inside. Yeah, why not? I mean the physiology
of the gods has to be something spectacular. Three cheers

(05:49):
for god guts. Yeah. Okay, you're ready for Dad Jokes,
as as ready as anyone ever is. Okay. This first
message comes from Eden. Eden says, Dear Robert and Joe,
in your recent Dad Jokes episode, you' all brought up
the lack of a signifier or punctuation mark in written

(06:11):
text that conveyed sarcasm. I wanted to shout through my
phone that there already is an existing signifier of sarcasm
in written text, and it does not ruin the joke
to use it. Rules for writing sarcasm have evolved naturally
on the Internet, and we see them every day. In fact,
often it is not punctuation so much as a lack
of punctuation. It's use as a form of rhetorical speech

(06:34):
is described here, and Eden includes a link to a
Tumbler post arguing in short that within Tumbler there has
evolved a linguistic convention that sentences presented without punctuation can
be understood in an ironic or rhetorical manner. So an
example kind of like what's used in this post would

(06:55):
be a sentence like why did Taco Bell give me
seventeen sauce packets for one taco? The sentence would feel
very different depending on whether or not you actually include
a question mark at the end of it. If there's
a question mark at the end of it, people might
be tempted to answer the question to say like, oh,
maybe it's because of this, or you know that they
could interpret it in different ways. If you don't punctuate

(07:17):
it at all, it's somehow kind of understood that this
is just like a joking or rhetorical question, and you're
probably exaggerating with the number. I'm I'm, I don't know. Yeah,
I'm just kind of a stickler for including your punctuation.
I don't know, I I'm. We take a lot of
convincing to to get me behind the idea of just

(07:39):
not using punctuation on a sentence, or to just in
order to use no capitalization, etcetera. You mean you're you're
not really familiar with this convention on the internet, or
just that you don't approve of it. Oh well, both mean.
I mean if I was more, if I was more
accustomed to it and their apps, I'd be more into it.
But like my gut reaction is, if we have to
choose between sarcasm and proper functuation, we choose punctuation, and

(08:02):
we we erase sarcasm from our our culture. Okay um.
Eden goes on a lack of punctuation or a period
where there should be a question mark, or even all
caps are an immediate signifier of sarcasm. Uh, this linguist
on the toast can explain it better than I can.
And then again Eden links to a to an article.

(08:23):
This is an article by a linguist named Gretchen McCulloch
who explains several ways that sarcasm or irony is often
conveyed in written language today on the Internet, often by
intentionally incorrect spelling, by lack of punctuation and capitalization. All
these things can sometimes be used to convey sarcasm or irony.
And yeah, I recognize these conventions. I've seen them on

(08:46):
Twitter in places where like a where a statement in
a post is denoted as ironic or sarcastic by being
presented say, like in all lower case with no punctuation.
I mean, I can some of these tools. I guess
I can get more behind the all caps thing. I
can understand that, and I guess I've probably used that before,

(09:07):
um and any. I guess even intentional misspellings have a place,
especially if you're trying to sort of present a a
specific dialect, you know, or impersonating specific individual um or
um you know, like say there's a particular celebrity you're
trying to uh to summon, you know, an image job

(09:31):
or to invoke in the writing. I think that would
make sense. I think I've realized one thing I do
is that often if I'm talking to somebody I work
with and I want to deny I don't think I
would ever put this together before, but I've realized I
often denote sarcasm or irony by including somewhere in the
sentence a business buzzword that I would never actually use

(09:53):
in a genuine manner. That that. Yeah, that that could
work for sure as a as a signify or something
like that. Yeah, But I guess part of it. I
guess a lot of this does come down to, you know,
what we talked about before, about how do we know
someone is being sarcastic? You know, there's there's tone, and
there's context. And if you're if if you're using the buzzwords,

(10:15):
are you perhaps leaning more into context a bit? I
don't know, Um yeah, I mean that would rely on
the person sort of knowing me well enough to know
that these are not terms that I genuinely use, So
that probably wouldn't work for like an audience that didn't
know who I was, But so, yeah, I guess that
that would be a context thing. I think the like
denoting sarcasm or irony or rhetorical speech by doing say,

(10:38):
all lowercase with no punctuation, that does seem to be
an attempt to use a written version of tone. It's
kind of like when you use the silly voice to
say something. Yeah, well, I mean I applied people out
out there in the field trying to to figure this out.
Even if even though there's some of these tools or
maybe not for me, uh you know, perhaps they work

(10:59):
and if they may communication better in these uh these formats,
then you know, I guess it's a win win anyway.
Eden concludes, My point is that we will never have
something as straightforward as a single mark to convey sarcasm, because,
as you pointed out in the episode, that such an
obvious pronouncement might spoil the joke. But we do have
unofficial linguistic rules about how we expressed sarcasm through text.

(11:21):
Love the show Eaten. Well, that's all good. Thanks for
writing in and sharing this. Yeah, this a little much
of this is a world I'm not familiar with. All right,
here's one from Carlos. Hey there. Just wanted to add
to your dad joke stories. My dad is from Argentina,
and often when I was a kid, he would try

(11:43):
to translate jokes from Spanish. Almost every time, my dad
would arrive at the punchline only to realize that the
joke didn't translate. Also, I don't know if this is
just me, but I have noticed that curse words and
other languages never have the same kick that they do
in one's native language. Slang from Argentina, bay In, how
my dad has explained it to me, can be pretty foul.

(12:03):
As such, my dad often told dirty jokes or jokes
that hinged on bad words, impolite company teachers, pastors, etcetera.
Uh So, not only did they usually fall flat, they
often were on the vulgar side, embarrassing back then hilarious.
Now thanks for everything, Carlos. Nothing better than telling dirty
jokes to the pastor alright. This next message comes to

(12:31):
us from Jim and New Jersey about part one of
our episodes on post biological intelligence. Jim says Robert and
Joe in your Machine Lords of Barnard six, Part one,
Joe was reading from Susan Schneider's AI comments comparing silicon
versus organic processing, and she mentioned seven manageable chunks being

(12:52):
the limitation of a human brain. You mentioned Miller, but
didn't seem to know the reference yet. She referred to
Miller as the citation for that seven chunk's claim, but
we talked about how we didn't follow up on that. Well,
Jim has the explanation here. Jim rights, she's referring to
George Miller's cognitive psychological paper the Magic number seven plus
or minus two. It's referring to short term memory. Humans

(13:15):
can manage about seven things in their short term memory,
but it varies per individual by plus or minus two.
The things we can manage are not just numbers, letters,
or words. Each slot can manage a single chunk, That
is it can be a composite idea with several parts,
but we still consider it a whole. I've heard that
one of the original tests involved showing chess peace configurations

(13:39):
to chess novices and masters. They had a fixed amount
of time, let's say sixty seconds to examine the board,
and they were tasked with reconstructing it. The chess masters
did much better than the novices, but then instead of
actual chess game configurations, both sets of volunteers were shown
random chess peace configurations, and the novice says and master

(14:00):
has got about the same number of pieces correct. In
the chess game portion of the test, a cluster of
pieces in the corner would appear as six or seven
pieces and require almost all of the short term memory
slots for the novice. However, the chess master would recognize
them as a castling position, and this castling chunk would

(14:20):
would only require one short term memory slot. Likewise, other
familiar chess piece configurations would chunk for the chess master.
The chess master doesn't have more memory. The chess master
has additional information about the game to chunk it more
efficiently than the novice. Random configurations contained no chunks, so

(14:42):
the master could only remember seven pieces, which was the
same as the novice. And this makes sense to me
because if you have something that's sort of already understood
as a whole and and stored in your memory in
a way, you could store it much more efficiently. Like
you could probably remember seven whole lines from movies that
you've watched a million times and you've got the lines

(15:04):
already memorized, but you couldn't remember as easily nearly as
much of the dialogue of a film that you were
unfamiliar with and being exposed to for the first time.
You could remember, Oh, it was this line from that film,
and that's one piece of information in your brain. Yeah. Anyway,
Jim goes on, chunking exists in most skills and hobbies.
If a concept has its own name, it's probably a chunk.

(15:27):
Referring back to Susan Schneider, a human short term memory
has seven slots. A computer does not have this limitation
Jim in New Jersey, Well, thanks Jim, that that fills
in something very relevant. Yeah, and it also kind of
makes spell slots in dungeons and dragons uh less um yeah,
less of an abstract concept, right, I mean, it's just like, yeah,
you only have so many slots. You can only have

(15:49):
so many spells prepared. But each spell is one chunk
if you know it well enough. Yeah, all right, And
then we one message about spoon. It's not very long.
It is just from a listener who signed their email quote.
Just a signature here, so I hope that works. Uh.
And the messages saw this and it reminded me of

(16:12):
your discussion about the sport. I think actually what you're
talking about is our our refusal to discuss the sport.
But this listener says you'll enjoy the foon and then
attaches a picture. One is a sport. So it's the
bowl of a spoon with some times at the end.
The foon is a fork in which each of the
times ends in a tiny spoon bowl. Yeah, it's it's

(16:34):
pretty weird looking. Even the spork looks weird because it
looks like it was Perhaps it's it's it's if it's
a like a fine silver spork, which I guess probably
it probably exists. But this looks like it was, you know,
perhaps created in photoshop. Rob. I can tell you're about
to lash out in anger. Let's let's move on to
something else. All right, just a uh comes to us

(17:00):
from brad Um and it's a response to our episode
Gold Medal of the Sun. Dear Robert and Joe, I
am writing about your episode on Gold. I don't believe
you mentioned one of Gold's most interesting properties. It's heat
shielding prowess. Approximately point eight ounces sixteen grams of gold
foil is used in the engine bay of each McLaren
F one because it protects the carbon fiber body and

(17:23):
the mono cue frame and chassis from heat, the heat
of the engine. Are we talking about a car here,
by the way, Yeah, I think this is like it's
like a racing car of some kind of very very fast,
high performance car. Yeah, because I was thinking of like
a like a like a fighter plane. It's like, I
don't don't recognize McLaren as as as a company that

(17:44):
makes fighter jets, so I don't. So I'm not familiar
with this word that mono cock or mono monoc quay,
whatever that is. Yeah, Anyway, they continue. This was a
choice by Gordon Murray, the chief engineer of the car.
The gold foy old lined engine bay is one of
two distinct design features of this car. The other big

(18:04):
design distinction is the three seats. Here's a link to
the Wikipedia article, which they include for us. Um. I've
been listening on and off for a couple of years,
but I have started listening frequently since I've been working
from home. Keep up the great work, especially with the
Weird House Cinema series. Regards Brad. Thanks Brad. All Right,
I am looking at the Yep, that's a pretty fancy

(18:25):
looking car. Um, let's see. Yes, okay, this is Bond
villain car. Yeah, maybe you have more perspective on this.
I've got a question here. Is there a point at
which a car starts looking so cool that it goes
over the line and it's not cool and instead it's
kind of dorky? Um? Maybe? I mean, I don't know

(18:49):
you Occasionally, you know, I guess I see a lot
of normal looking cars rolling around, uh, the neighborhood. You
know that you usually don't pay much attention to them,
and occasionally, like even things like, at least to my eyes,
even when there's like a tesla there, I have to
really look at it to realize it's a tesla. Um
where until I'm finally like, WHOA the student's dropping off

(19:10):
his kids at school? And a Tesla. What's that about? Um?
But I guess occasionally you do see a car that
is like so fancy or so antique that it is
just I I grabbing. UM. I don't know what extent
it becomes uncool. I'm I guess it just depends on
on how judgmental you are about how people, uh you know, um,

(19:35):
how people spend their money and you know, what they
choose to drive around in. UM. I guess it's possible,
but it would be very, very subjective. Except for the headlights.
I'm not sure I would be able to tell which
end of this car is the front. Yeah, I don't know.
It's kind of I imagine. I'm not a car person,
so I don't really get excited about cars and all.
But I think one area I might be able to

(19:56):
compare it to would be like my my interest in
things like inks and and military aircraft, which, on on
one level, I can definitely look at a bomber or
a tank and be like, Wow, that's a really cool
looking air plants a neat design, And on the other hand,
I'm like, that is okay, that's that's a weapon of
war that probably or in many cases definitely caused a

(20:17):
lot of death, destruction and misery and pain. Um, But
on some level you kind of separate the two when
you're considering just pieces of technology like that. Uh. And granted,
if you're talking about like a Lamborghini or something, it
probably didn't lead to uh, you know, the same level
of of death and misery that a uh you know,
like an M one tank did. But still you kind

(20:40):
of they're probably different ways that we engage in thinking
about it. So we might be able to look at
a car and be like, oh, that's a really cool
car without thinking is that a wise use of one's money?
Is that appropriate to drive on these streets? So what
does that say about inequality in our in our world
or our nation that sort of thing. Uh? So I
don't know not to lay all that on this one
particular their car. No, No, it's a it's it's a

(21:03):
cool looking car. I will admit if I saw it
driving down the street, I would say, Wow, that's a
cool car. I jump right in front of it. It
would be an honor could get run over by this car,
something I really get excited about. I live close to
railroad tracks, and I think one of my favorite things
in the world are maintenance vehicles on railroad tracks? Yeah,

(21:25):
I get really excited about those. I point them out
to my family and mostly they don't care. But but yeah,
if there's some sort of strange vehicle that's cleaning the
tracks or enabling the maintenance of the tracks, or even
just a truck on the tracks, you know, um that
I that that stuff. That's something I really get excited about.
So if I imagine there are people who get that

(21:45):
level of excited about sports cars and all, and I can,
I can acknowledge that I'm right here with you. I
think I have much more enthusiasm about reil based vehicles. Yeah,
oh yeah, yeah, I still occasionally, Unfortunately I don't have
them every night. I have semi recurring dreams about getting
to ride special train cars on like the subway or

(22:06):
our local rail system here in Atlanta, though it's usually
kind of like an unreal, uh subway system I'm engaging in,
but like a chance where oh I get to ride
this like open vehicle that's traveling through the subway tunnels
or some sort of bizarre say, and it it like
it occurs with some regular frequency, and my my dreams
I don't always remember it all that well, but yeah,

(22:28):
something about strange train cars. I'm I'm just really drawn to.
I thought you were going to say, like a fancy
you know, orient express style, uh dining car on Marta. Oh,
I would be up for that as well. Yeah, one
of my favorite museums. Uh. There are so many great
museums in New York, but the Public Transit Rail Museum

(22:49):
is so great because it's an actual subway station and
it's filled with just different historical train cars and you
can just walk through them and explore. It's it's wonderful.
Oh that sounds cool. Maybe one day huh yeah, yeah,
one day I'll get back up there. Alright. This next

(23:12):
message is about the Fatim Organa episode. This comes from Alexander.
Alexander says, Hello, Robert and Joe. Hope you guys are
safe and well. I've been a fan of the podcast
for some years now, and to someone who listens mostly
to comedy shows, your weekly discussions give me real food
for thought. I love the informal and really interesting tone
of the conversations and the themes of the episodes. So

(23:33):
when hearing the episode about the Fatim Morgana, I couldn't
help but think of a minor character of the anime Narudo.
And as you guys ask for representations of the shin
in media, here you go. Also, English is not my
first language, so bear with me. No worries at all,
Alexander rob what's a quick refresher on the shin Oh.

(23:55):
A giant clan that lives in the deep and belches
up a column of of ectoplasm that forms like fairy
castles and cities in the sky, on the horizon, in
the in the Sea of Japan. Yeah, amazing, like giant
clam monsters burping up bubbles that turn into visions. Yeah.

(24:15):
And if you and yeah, you don't want to go
following it because it's not really there. You can't really
live there, you can't really explore it. Um you know,
it's it's fairy fire that will lead you to your
down excellent summary. The message continues. So Naruto is a
pretty famous anime that tells the story of Naruto Uzumaki,
a young ninja who seeks recognition from his peers and

(24:37):
dreams of becoming the the hokag I think the leader
of his village, while dealing with the mythical spirit of
the Kyubi, a nine tailed fox sealed in his body.
The Shin appears during the fourth Shinobi World War Arc,
one of the final ones. The creature is a pretty
straightforward representation of the Chinese myth and also has the

(24:59):
ability to create mirages and delusions. The giant Clam appears
as a personal summon of the second Mizukag, the leader
of the hidden village of the Mist, resurrected to fight
in the Ninja World War. It's capable of producing a
mist that creates a deceptive mirage that renders observers unable

(25:19):
to locate the position of the summinar or the clam itself.
In my opinion, it was a very interesting use of
the Chinese myth of the Shin. I'm also attaching a
link of the clam scene with the English sub so
you guys can better understand the role of the creature
in the anime. Unfortunately, when I clicked on it, the
video is unavailable, so I think snatched by the piracy bots.

(25:44):
Those bots that someday they'll pay back. In Alexander's message
p S, I would also love to make a suggestion
for the future. It would be really cool to hear
an episode about the Amazon, Pink river dolphin. I'm from
Brazil and this aquatical mammal is and an extremely interesting
animal with a rich mythical background and repercussions on the

(26:05):
sociology or anthropology of indigenous groups. Thank you for your
great podcast. Keep up the good work. Smiley face emoji
which for some reason, when I copy and paste turns
into a capital J. I don't know what to do
about that. Let's see for starters. UM. I have not
seen this anime in question. Uh, And of course wasn't
able to get that link to work, but I am

(26:26):
vaguely aware that it exists, so I don't know. MAYBO
have to check it out of enjoying a lot of
high quality animation these days. Oh and then secondly pink
river dolphin. Yeah, I would love to do something on
pink river dolphins. Uh, dolphins in general, just a fascinating topic. UM.
In a recent listener mail, we listen we heard, We

(26:49):
asked everyone, it's like, hey, what's some relaxing music you dig?
We heard from a couple of people. I'm not going
to read their complete emails, but I would just want
to mention some of the the music that they recommended.
H William, responding on the discussion module, said that they
too are fans of Biosphere that we brought up, but
also mentioned another artist that I dig, Rook Schnouse, as

(27:11):
well as an artist by name of William Basinski, who
I think I've listened to a little bit before. I
think they're known for these like using degenerating tapes um
to create interesting soundscapes. Oh, that's interesting. One of my
favorite things actually that that the Internet is good for
is recordings of dying sound playing chips that are implanted

(27:33):
in greeting cards that play music. So there are a
lot of really good ones there. There's one that I
used to listen to all the time. It was the
Happy Birthday Song, but it was of course not able
to quite produce the clarity and crispness and power that
it once did when it was first purchased, so it
rendered this absolute dirge of death for your birthday. Another

(27:55):
one that I think I shared with you not too
long ago was playing the Baja Mens who Let the
Dogs Out? But as the machines spiraled down to its doom,
the who let the Dogs Out chorus became increasingly forlorn. Yeah, yeah,
that was a good one for sure. Um, let's see
they speaking of which is not really decayed um audio

(28:15):
loops or anything. But I'm also a big fan of
Steve Reich's music for eighteen musicians if anyone out there
is looking for something to try out. But what William
also mentions, uh Billow observatory that I'm not familiar with,
and also brings up, of course Brian Eno, especially Brian
ENO's work with Robert Fripp. Love Brian Eno. Yes, yeah, absolutely.

(28:37):
In fact, we heard from another listener by the name
of Jarry who wanted to write you in just about
you Know, um that they that they basically go on
at length here about how great you Know's work is
and lists list some stuff to check out. I'm not
going to go into all of it here, but they
do pinpoints some of the big ones, like music for airports, atmospheres,

(29:01):
and soundtracks. I'm a big fan personally of what music
music for films that has a or whatever it was called,
where it's like little bits of of soundtrack score for
non existent films that he put together. I'm pretty sure
we've talked on the show before about how we both
agreed that music for airports should actually be played in
airports instead of whatever god awful racket that they're pumping

(29:22):
out of, like the TVs they've got up in there too.
If you run an airport, please don't have TVs running
in the terminal areas. That is just a recipe for
incredible stress and misery. Yeah. I don't know why. I
don't know why music for airports was ignored by airports. Uh.
They also mentioned, you know, his work with Cluster we've

(29:43):
talked about. I know that you're you're a fan of
Cluster as well. Um, he's worked he worked on Ambient
to the Plateau of Mirror, worked on that with Harold Budd,
who's another big name in ambient sound. Um. Yeah, there's
just there's just so much, so much great stuff that
the you knows put out over the years, and still
it was putting out great ambient material. What I apologize

(30:04):
if I missed it? Did? Did you already mentioned Bowie's
Eno collaboration period? No? No, but that's that's amazing stuff
as well. Does that include the Bowie album Low? Oh,
I'm not I don't know that. To answer to that, Wait,
Seth has chimed in, Seth has chimed in. Yes, it
does Low is one of my favorite David Bowie albums.
It's not it's not as fun as some of his

(30:25):
other albums. It's very uh dark and it it has
the feeling of looking at the twentieth century from a
hermetically sealed chamber through a curved piece of glass. But
it is. It is a dark and beautiful album, and
a lot of the electronic and synthesizer work I think,
especially on the second half of the album, feels very

(30:45):
very like dark you know. Yeah. One of the things
about you know, of course, is when I think of
you know, I do think of his ambiat work. But
I did a lot of material. He put out a
lot of material if you want to if anyone out
there wants to hear like the funkier side of Eno.
DJ Food put out a wonderful mix eleven years ago
now who titled more Volts the Funky Eno. If you

(31:08):
look it up you can still find it. DJ Food
has it hosted on SoundCloud, and uh, I haven't listened
to it in a little bit, but I remember it
being a lot of fun, just a lot of of cool,
funky beats from Brian Eno working with various people like
David byrne Um uh and and so forth. Yeah, but
also very versatile, because yes, there there is that funky side.

(31:29):
But then music for airports is just the most calming
thing I have ever heard. I mean, is is there
any series of sounds that better puts the brain at
at peace? Yeah? Yeah? How mad can you be when
you're listening to music for airports? Yeah? It's like, Okay,
I missed my connection. You know it's gonna be all right.

(31:53):
All right, looks like we have some weird how cinema
email as well here Joe. That's right. So this first
message comes from Jim. Jim says, hey, Robert and Joe,
you mentioned on the listener mail that sometimes you should
do a Ken Russell film on weird House cinema. Uh.
There are many great ones from Ken Russell, but my
recommendation is Layer of the White Worm nineteen nine eight.

(32:15):
I don't think you're right about that year, Jim. I'm
I'm pretty sure that is wrong, but I will be
corrected if I'm wrong about that. Rob. Maybe you can
look it up while I'm reading this. It's adapted from
a novel by Bram Stoker and as several well known
stars Hugh Grant, Peter Capaldi, Katherine Oxenberg. It's about a
British vampuric snake cult. It's fun, funny, sexy, lightly scary.

(32:38):
I think it might be available on to be right
now if you have that app. Thanks for all your work,
Jim and Jim. Yes, you you know our strike zone.
I love this movie definitely one that I've been planning
to feature at some point. Uh. Layer of the White Worm.
In fact, I thought I had mentioned it on a
recent weird House cinema because we were talking about blasphemous

(32:59):
like crucifixion scenes and movies, and Lair of the White
Worm has a really good like uh snake demon, blasphemous
crucifixion vision. Yeah, and I looked it up. It's a
film so close one decade off. Yeah, it's been a
while since I've seen it, but I remember being a
lot of fun. It has a Yeah, it's a uh
sexy and weird and has a really cool worm puppet

(33:20):
in it. Yeah, just glorious, absolutely great. All right, here's
a bit of email comes to us from Emily. Hi,
Robert and Joe. Let me start off by saying, I've
been loving the steady stream of stuff toble your mind
content coming through my pod catcher, especially weird how Cinema.
Y'all killing the game? Please continue anyway, I'm writing with

(33:42):
the suggestion for weird House. I feel like you guys
have brought it up before, but I don't remember the context.
So maybe this is one of your two watch list.
This is on your two watch list already. Nine seventy
two is Silent Running, directed by Douglas Trumbull. Has been
on my personal to watch list since high school, and
my husband and I are just getting around to why
watching it recently. I'd love to get you guys this
take on it. My favorite thing about the experience of

(34:04):
watching fifty year old sci fi movies is sitting with
that feeling, uh, with your disbelief. Can't quite stay suspended
as a modern watcher, because the film depicts technology is
basically quote magic dressed in greebals and blinking lights um
hand waving away exactly how the machine does what it's
shown doing, like the robots being advanced enough to understand

(34:26):
natural speech while also running on basically punch card programs,
which are themselves sophisticated enough to enable said robots to
perform surgery and play poker. I don't know if general
audiences in the nineteen seventies would have felt that same
challenge to the suspension of disbelief, or if I just
learned too much ding dang science from the wealth of

(34:46):
accessible science content available in this day and age, including
in No Small Park this very podcast. Anyway, keep out
the great work and stay safe out there. Looking forward
to the next batch of podcasts. Regards Emily, I think
the main takeaway from Silent Running is just surgery. Isn't
that hard? Basically anybody could do it. Yeah, with the
right punch card. But no, Emily, You're in luck. We

(35:09):
did a whole episode about Silent Running sometime in nineteen
I believe, Yeah, June eight, nineteen, just simply titled Silent Running.
It's one of the episodes that we did a series
of episodes that we did with They were ultimately kind
of a precursor to Weird House Cinema, where we were like,
what do we need to do to get away with
talking about weird movies on this podcast, And you know,

(35:30):
we realized, well, certain types of movies lent themselves well
to that kind of discussion, because like two thousand and
one of Space Odyssey's Silent Running. These are films with
a lot of science in them to discuss, you know,
whether the science works ride or is presented in a
way that makes sense. It's said, that's all part of
the discussion. Yeah, but obviously things have evolved since then.
You know, if we're gonna be putting out five episodes

(35:51):
a week, at least one of them we're just gonna
talk about movies. Yeah. But indeed, Silent Running great film.
I love it. I'll always of it and I recommend
it to anybody out there who wants to, uh, you know,
seek out a weird, cool, well acted, um piece of
sci fi cinematic history. A great soundtrack too. I love

(36:13):
the Joe Bias tracks. All right, Well, it looks like
our mail bot is shutting down, so we need to
go ahead and shut down this episode as well. But
we thank everybody for writing in. We didn't get to
get to everything, but you know, we'll we'll try and
get to it next week. Um. Even if we don't
read your mail on Listener mail, we still read it
when it comes in. So keep it coming. Your your

(36:35):
your your comments, your thoughts, your corrections, your ideas for
the future, thoughts on Stuff Table your Mind episodes, thoughts
on Weird House Cinema episodes, thoughts on Artifact episodes, etcetera. Uh,
we just want to hear from y'all. Absolutely keep it coming,
you know. Actually, I thought when we switched to doing
episodes once a week that that would mean we we
ended up having time to read all listener mail. It

(36:57):
did not work out that way. I feel like we
still don't even get to have off of it. So
apologies if your message has not been read, please don't
take it personally. But we we love all the email
we get. We really do. That's right. In the meantime,
if you want to listen to other episodes of Stuff
to Blow Your Mind listener mail, it tends to publish
on Mondays. I think that's its standard date of publication.
Wednesdays will do an Artifact unless we need to preempt it.

(37:20):
Tuesdays and Thursdays are our core Stuff to Blow Your
Mind episodes, Friday is Weird How Cinema, and then we
have evolved episode over the weekend. That's right. Hook your
ears up, download it all, listen, do as we command you,
but anyway, huge thanks as always to our excellent audio
producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get
in touch with us to potentially have a piece of
email featured on a future Listener Mail episode, to provide

(37:43):
feedback to this episode or any other, to suggest a
topic for the future, or just to say hi, you
can always email us at contact at stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is
a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,

(38:05):
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.