Listener Mail: Warlocks in the Sky

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

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
My Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow
your Mind. Listener mail. My name is Robert Lamb and
my name is Joe McCormick. Again, It's Monday, the day
of the week that we read back some messages you've
sent into the show account. Recently, I've been trying to
remember to say the email address towards the beginning of

(00:25):
these episodes lately. It is contact at Stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com. If you want to get in
touch show with feedback on any episodes we do. If
you just want to tell us something interesting, if you
want to ask a question, whatever you want, you know
you can write in just to say hi. It's contact
at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Rob If

(00:46):
you don't mind, I'm going to start off with this
message from Lurch, which relates to several episodes. Yeah, Lurch
it up, Lurch says, good warning, gentlemen, allow me to
start by flogging a dead lamb, referring back to the
vegetable lamb of tartary. Wow, we have really been getting

(01:10):
some stragglers on this one. That's been going on for
months now. Yeah, this is not sometimes you can you
know an episode is going to generate a certain amount
of feedback. Some uh, some don't actually come through like
you expect they will, and something like the vegetable lamb
of Tartary just continue to pull in the listener contents,
which which I love. I love being surprised like that.

(01:30):
I think I've noticed a pattern that the definitely we
get the most email in response to any episode that
offers listeners a chance to tell us about their dreams,
not like their hopes and dreams, but their nighttime, sleepy dreams. Yeah.
I guess that's what y'all are like. Okay, anyway, Lurch
goes on to say, referring referring back to the vegetable
lamb of Tartary, I was struck by the apparent fact

(01:52):
I may be misremembering that the earliest references to the
lamb slash gourd were as food. Knowing how and thoughtful
humans are to strangers, it seems quite possible that a
traveler was once offered baked lamb in a gourd as
a feast provided by some host as a joke. Of
such things are history made? Well, that's that's an interesting

(02:15):
point I have had in the past, when I was
more of a meat eater, I did have meat in
a pumpkin ones, So such a dishes do exist. It's
been so long I forgot what the earliest accounts, where
was it, Sir John Mandeville? And didn't he but I
think he said like it it was a fully formed
little lamb. Yeah, you have these different versions of it, right,

(02:37):
complicated are the roots of the vegetable lamb of tartary? Okay,
Lurch goes on to say, I'm just glad it didn't
catch on. Speaking of cooking, let me now turn my
attention to cauldron's I'm positive I'm not the first to
float this hypothesis, so I'm rather surprised it wasn't given
at least a passing mention. In the episodes, several times
you guys mentioned that cauldrons have been found hidden deliberately

(02:59):
placed in relatively secure locations, such as bogs. I've never
thought of a bog as a secure location. But okay, yeah,
it's a solid investment. Always invest in bogs. Yes, yeah,
I can't lose, Lurch says. Relatively speaking, I'd suggest that
cauldrons were expensive back in the day, and of course
they're still pretty heavy. Uh yeah. Of course this goes

(03:21):
along with something we talked about in one of the
later Cauldron episodes about that paper, arguing that cauldron's had
social significance because they were sort of something that would
be used, probably not in preparing normal everyday meals, but
for preparing communal meals. So if you had a cauldron,
that was kind of like showing off your your wealth

(03:41):
and community significance and your power to uh to assert
social dominance by hosting feasts. But springboarding off the idea
that cauldrons are expensive, Lurch says, if a horde of
rampaging outsiders were threatening your home, but you couldn't flee
with your valuables, what would you do what everybody else
in that situation is done throughout history, Hide the good

(04:03):
china and the hope that it will still be there
when you return if you return. Of course, if you don't,
you still want to deny the good stuff to the
bad guys. Okay, so I think I understand Lurch is
suggesting that somebody may have just hidden a cauldron in
the bog for safe keeping, rather than intentionally depositing it
there as a sacrifice to the gods, as has often

(04:24):
been assumed. Yeah, it's an interesting hypothesis. It's my understanding
that the historians are are going on more than just
the finding of cauldrons in bogs. I mean, we have
other things that have been entered there, such as bodies
and so forth, that there there seems to be a
strong understanding that these were sacred places, that they were

(04:45):
maybe considered you a place between. Right, you might find
bodies in the bog that are not just anybody, but
somebody who looks pretty strongly like a case of human
sacrifice or something like that. Okay. Uh. Finally, Lurch said,
I turned my attention to weird house in particular Planet
of the Vampires, one of my all time favorite movies.

(05:07):
During your commentary, Joe mentioned that he loves a good uniform.
I think we both said that I quite agree. Let
me share my favorite, the uniforms of the Technocrats in
Things to Come. What puts these uniforms at the top
of the list is the absolutely over the top helmet.
In my opinion, these are the best cinematic uniforms ever made.

(05:28):
Robbi included some pictures for you to look at. We
can come back and uh and address these in a bit,
but just to finish lurches message. On a side note,
near the end of the movie is a set that
leaves me in stitches every time I watch. They're preparing
to use a huge gun to fire people into space
to the moon. Aside from the fact that this idea
cannot work, why is there a site on the end

(05:49):
of the barrel? Thank you for helping the miles go
by more quickly, lurch. Okay, so I guess we should
briefly introduce the idea of Things to Come. This this
movie from the thirties. I believe I talked about it
in the previous Listener mail episode that I did by
myself while you were out of town once. Yeah, yeah,
this is um this is one of those films. I've

(06:10):
never actually seen it, but I'm familiar with it, and
of course I've been admiring this space suit for for ages.
Things to Come n six widely regarded as a sci
fi classic, and what one that Michael Weldon actually had
of the psychotronic film Guides lists as one of his
top ten films of the nineteen thirties. This one's also
notable because H. G. Wells adapted his own novel for

(06:33):
the screen in this one, and I believe this is
the only time that he did this. Uh so, Yeah,
these space suits are pretty great. They have basically imagine
a traditional space suit, and there's a lot of same
noess in space suit designs and science fiction. Now imagine
one that has enough room for your head to grow

(06:54):
in size by what uh and the three sizes are more.
Or one that has enough room for the most outrageous
hairstyle imaginable. If you ever played Golden I for the
Nintendo sixty four and you use the cheat known as
d K mode, where it would turn all the characters
into Donkey Kong with giant heads and arms. This is

(07:15):
a space suit made for for DK mode people. Yeah, yeah,
it's but the thing is so yes, you can when
you describe it like this, it sounds ridiculous. It does
look a little ridiculous, but it also looks really cool
in a way that's hard to really drive home. Wine.
I think part of it is that it just does
look so different, and therefore it feels like a product

(07:38):
of a of a of a different age. Yeah, I agree.
I love a big, very sort of globular helmet like this.
You know, I always love the helmets in Alien, like
in the Alien franchise, because they're kind of oh, you know,
they're like a big glass ball on the front. Yeah, yeah,
those are those are solid helmets for sure. Now coming

(07:58):
back to what Lurch says, a out the space gun
that's gonna send people into orbit in the movie. Yeah,
I never noticed this before, but it is true. The
barrel of this giant guns, this is not something that
would be held by a human. It's like building sized.
It has an iron sight at the end of the barrel,
like somebody's going to be looking down it aim. Yeah,

(08:19):
I believe. Weldon also said in his summary of the
city that he thinks like it's it's one of those
films you can really only compare it to Metropolis, like
he in terms of the scope of it. And I
guess the end of the time period of science fiction involved.
All right. We also heard back from some folks on
our Vault episode about Numerouscy. This one comes to us

(08:42):
from Anna, Hello, Robert, Joe, and Steath. I enjoyed your
recent Vault episode on Numerousy and whether it is innate
or learned. I was wondering how this relates to time
as a small child, you conceptualized time differently, Like when
you were told you can play for fifteen minutes, that
doesn't really have much meaning. You just stopped playing when
your mom says it's dinner time. But you do have

(09:04):
an idea of time passing. Rob's story about his son
reminds me of something that happened to my niece, Mim.
She was staying with my parents, Granny and granddad. To
her and my brother, her father had taken the opportunity
to go to the shops child free. Nim and Granny
were playing out front of the house. Mim asked when

(09:25):
will Daddy be home. Granny said, Daddy will be home soon,
and with the absolute confidence of a four year old,
Nim said, but it's soon. Now hard to argue with
that smiley face. I really enjoy all the content you
put out, and I love the way you presented. Keep
up the good work. That's great. And so the first
paragraph here about like being told you can play for

(09:45):
fifteen minutes as a child and that not really having meaning,
I think it's absolutely squares with my memories of childhood,
where time being given time periods up to a certain
point was very mysterious to me, and at a certain point,
I re remember deciding, like when I was asking on
a car trip how much time was left. Essentially, if

(10:06):
I was told anything less than an hour, I knew
that we would be there immediately. It's like, oh, okay,
we're pretty much there. And anything more than an hour,
I knew it would be forever. Yeah, I mean, it's
a it's it's a it's a timeless question, especially for children.
How soon as soon? How soon is now? All right?

(10:31):
Here's another one about our numerous the episodes. This is
from Andrea. Andrea says, Hi, Robert and Joe, I've been
listening to the show for at least four years, but
I've never written in until now. Your vault episode discussing
whether animals have been number since reminded me of a
cat we had years ago who was both very very
smart and very very strange. When she was a kitten,

(10:53):
one of her favorite pastimes was to go to the basement,
pick up a strip of rag that we had torn
up for staking tomato plants, carry it up the stairs
in her mouth, deposited on the kitchen floor, then return
to the basement for the next one. If, however, to
mess with her we removed rag number six while she

(11:14):
was down getting number seven. She would notice immediately when
she returned to become very upset and search for it
while me owing accusingly at us. We surmised from this
that she could indeed count I'm open to other explanations though.
Oh and then Andrea has some other comments about enjoying
listening to our show as as one drifts off to sleep.

(11:34):
But either way, yes, so we we we fully support
that usage as well. Um so so, Yeah, I think
this is an interesting story about the cat. Rob Have
you ever seen anything like this? Uh? No, but I
I absolutely have no reason to doubt that this cat
has a full range of numerousy. I mean, I can't
make any other hypothesis that could possibly explain this. This

(11:56):
cat has the maths. This cat will prove the Rimond conjecture. No,
I seriously though, I yeah, I don't even I really
don't even know what to make of this. I would,
I would seriously guess that the cat does not have
any kind of a number sense. Um, that there's some
other reason for one rag rather than the other rag,
but that it has nothing to do with the numbers

(12:16):
that are printed on there. Yeah, it's been a while
since we did the episode, so now I'm afraid it's
you know, we we talked about these things, and sometimes
they sort of partially leave my head, or sometimes more
than partially. I think it was that, you know that.
I think the conclusion was that a lot of animals
seem to have maybe a sense of numerousy for a
few numbers, like like one to three or so, but

(12:39):
after that, differences get get kind of lost. Like you
wouldn't expect a non human animal to tell the difference
between six and seven, does that quantity? Yeah, like here's
six cat treats, here's seven cat treats. Um. Yeah, my
if my memory is correct on this, yeah, it means
that the cat probably can't tell the difference between those
quantities where it could tell the difference between say two

(13:01):
and seven, and in terms of the numbers six and seven,
absolutely not, unless I mean, they would have to be
some other factors involved, something sent related or I don't
even know if the sound related. It could be possible,
I guess if there was something attached to the uh
to to the strips um. Yeah, I don't know. There

(13:23):
have to be some other elements in play here. The
closest studn seed to that is my dog knows that
he gets too dog treats after dinner, and if he
just gets one, he knows that he has owed another
one he doesn't forget. But I don't know if he
were to get seven after dinner, he might just lose track. Yeah, well,
you're gonna have to test tonight. It's um, it's seven treats,

(13:45):
and then keep that up for a little bit and
then bring him down to six and see if he complains.
All right, you want to do some of these messages
about sky bridges. Yeah, this is one where I knew
we would to hear from from folks on these, and
I was not disappointed. This one comes to us from Jeff.
Jeff says, Hi, Robert and Joe. I just finished listening

(14:08):
through the first and second episode on sky bridges, and
I've got a few thoughts. I grew up and currently
live in Winnipeg, Manitoba, which regularly gets colder than negative
forty degrees celsius for days or weeks at a time
during the winter, and often gets warmer than thirty degrees
celsius in the summertime. As a result, our entire downtown
is basically connected by various sky bridges, underground tunnels, and

(14:29):
covered arcades, making quite simple to get from a person's
house then to work, and including a chance to walk
around underground tunnels to do some additional shopping on your
lunch break in the underground mall. I lived in a
high rise for a few years, and navigating indoors to
get to concerts, restaurants, and even my grocery shopping was
quite simple if I wanted to avoid it the elements.

(14:51):
I also used to work at the University of Manitoba,
which is almost entirely connected by underground tunnels, so that
in the extreme cold, it is easy for students and
staff to get from building to building. A benefit to
having this protected connectivity that often goes overlooked is the
increased accessibility for people with mobility concerns, especially in a
city like Winnipeg that gets tremendous snow when ice builds

(15:13):
up throughout the year, and navigating with assistance devices and
bulky clothes can be quite difficult and cumbersome. I could
talk about the subject for hours, so I will end
it there, but I appreciate what you do. Keep up
the good work. Jeff Great points Jeff. Yeah, yeah, but
first on you know, a cold city or a city
that is often cold, and then the mobility issues that's

(15:35):
that's that's a big concern. Along the same lines with
the with the relationship between skybridge density and weather, we
got a message from Kenya. Kenya says, hello, I'm surprised
you focus so much on Atlanta instead of Minneapolis or St. Paul,

(15:57):
which have intricate mazes of skywalks connecting a good number
of buildings downtown. I went to St. Paul and a
work trip in the dead of winter. Our team stayed
at a hotel that wasn't on the Skyway, while the
client team stayed in a hotel that was connected to
the Skyway. I remember them showing up without their coats
while we were freezing. They forgot to tell us about

(16:18):
this on subsequent days. Walking to the work site from
our hotel, we walked to the closest building on the
Skyway and snaked our way through buildings to get to work.
Food convenience stores, a post office, and everything you could
need were in that maze. I would also love for
you guys to talk about underground tunnels that work the
way that skywalks do. At at one point in the

(16:41):
Crystal City part of Arlington, Virginia, there was no foot traffic.
Everything was underground. The Crystal City Underground isn't what it
used to be. At one time it had an arcade
in a movie theater. Now it just contained some lunch
spots in a theater while connecting several buildings to the
metro station. I've always thought it dark and day, but
it's a similar concept, just without sunlight. Toronto has a

(17:03):
similar underground tunnel system. Your show is always a good listen, Kenya, Well,
thank you, Kenya. Um Well, it's the first on the
Atlanta point. I mean, first of all, we are in Atlanta,
so it is kind of what's kind of neat to
focus a little bit on our home city here. But
also I found that some of the social elements in

(17:24):
play and some of the social criticism of of of
sky bridges in these in some of these connected walkways,
they're a little more pronounced here in Atlanta versus a
city that has extreme cold weather going on. But still
I'm very much enjoying these examples that are coming to
us from northern cities. And as for tunnels, so I

(17:47):
mean don't don't tempt us. Uh, we'd we'd love to
do some episodes on tunnels in the future. I'm always
fascinated by subterranean passageways um for humans, for for trains
full of humans, for non human entities as well. So yeah,
that I think we could we could easily explore that
in the future. I I rob, I would say, you

(18:09):
have chronic tunnel bug in the brain. You you are
will never pass up a chance to talk about tunnels.
I'd I love a tunnel, and we have a feeling,
we have a we have some. We have some tunnels
here in Atlanta, though we're not nearly as underground a
city as as as many others. I mean, so's the
best examples are certainly far from here. But even then,

(18:29):
I love I love it when I'm in like a
train tunnel here in Atlanta on our Marta system. Alright,
one last message about sky bridges. This is from Pat.
Pat says, very interesting episodes, Thanks ever so much. I
was reminded of a not so spectacular example in Brooklyn.

(18:51):
When I was a boy, I loved visiting the Abraham
Strausse department store on Fulton Street in downtown Brooklyn. The
development and history of department stores is a cool subject.
This wonderful old store had many departments and an annex
building with availability of products not found in other department
stores in the sixties. At this one story, you could

(19:11):
buy quote underdrawers and I'm not sure I understand the
the accent being portrayed in this uh in this quote
underdrawers and the machine to wash them in One reached
the annex through a sky bridge. I loved this entrance
and I never missed the opportunity. You talked briefly about
roofs over cities. I read long ago about an idea

(19:33):
about creating a second level in Manhattan. The lower level
would be traffic only, the upper level would be pedestrian only. Sure,
there would be a dark underground, but this is not
a living space. It's a way of securing pedestrians from
the perils of vehicular traffic. Do keep up the fun work,
pat Well. That last point is very much in keeping

(19:53):
with some of the you know, the reasons behind creating
the sky bridges. Yeah, and and some of these sort
of fantas aastic architectural solutions like let's get the people
away from the from the vehicular traffic. Well, let's create
a safe barrier between the two. By the way, speaking
of Brooklyn, UM, I know I've mentioned this on the
show before, but if anyone out there, if you find

(20:15):
yourself in New York in Brooklyn as a tourist, or
maybe you just live there and you haven't checked this
out for yourself, the New York Transit Museum is excellent. Uh.
It is in an old um subway station, and so
you get to check out these examples of older cars
with the older style advertisements on them on the train
tracks themselves in an actual subway station. All right, And

(20:42):
here's one more, and uh, this is I guess this is.
This is not really a direct response to a Weird
House so much, but it's kind of in keeping with
the stuff we talked about on Weird House. Uh, this
is a response to recent discussions of local TV horror hosts.
And uh, who does this? Who's this coming out? We're
not I was trying to I'm not sure what name
this guy wanted us to use, so we'll skip the name.

(21:04):
I guess. Okay, from somebody here comes some listener mail.
All I grew up on Sanny Terry hosting horror films
in the seventies and some of the eighties. The picks
on the wiki page don't do him justice. So I
have attached a picture for your viewing pleasure, enjoying the
show and encouraging you to keep up the good work. Uh,
and there's uh you know what we have what we

(21:26):
have your Joe, We have some pictures of Samuel Terry
and we were you shared some video footage with me earlier. Well,
so this picture is a screen grab I took that.
This listener attached some other links in the in the email.
But Sammy Terry, if you're not getting it yet, that's
a that is a pun name, like cemetery. But when

(21:50):
I was like, okay, I'm not familiar. Sammy Terry was
an Indianapolis area local TV horror host. You can look
up it's there's clips of him on YouTube. The one
I watched was an intro to some movie. I don't
know what movie he was going into, but he gave
the most bizarre monologue about how, um, let's see like

(22:12):
you could be running from a madman, and then while
you're running from the madman, perhaps you get abducted by aliens,
and then you finally make it home safe, only to
discover that your tap water has been poisoned by a
like brain eating virus. And uh so strap in for
the movie. Uh and when it introduces Sam Sammy Terry,

(22:35):
he gets out of a coffin, he stands up, he's
got he's got sort of a Frankenstein face makeup, he's
kind of green. Uh and he's got a big red
cape with a hood. And it introduces him with a
local news style chiron like a name tag at the
bottom of the screen, except it doesn't do the punt.
It calls him Samuel Terry, and then under that it

(22:56):
says Google, I guess as his occupation. Yeah, I don't
think I've seen footage of this guy before, but I
like the stick. I think he had a good thing
going here. He also had a pet, rubber spider named
George Nice. Yeah, it seems like the main things you
need needed for one of these uh these these daytime
horror host gigs, was you need a little bit of makeup,

(23:18):
a few props, you know, maybe you have you know,
some sort of a coffin and the shot get one
from the local funeral home. But then mostly you just
need to have a lot of enthusiasm to ham it
up in front of the camera and talk well, in
this example, about basically anything in order to set up
the motion picture. I would say that, at least in

(23:38):
the one clip I watched, Sammy Terry seemed less oriented
around puns and jokes than someone like Elvira or the
crypt Keeper, who they were just like chock full of
densely packed comedy about the movies. If I recall, Sammy
Terry seemed more like a sort of campy Hammy direct

(24:00):
to monologue about monsters and frights. I mean, maybe he
wasn't actual Ghoul. That's the thing we're doubting the authenticity
of the character. This is he's he's risen from the
tomb here and he's here to talk about tomb stuff.
He didn't even know there's a movie coming. I didn't
mean to disrespect his life's work. Google things are important. Well,

(24:20):
this was great. If anybody out there has any other
examples of local TV horrows, I'd certainly love to to
hear about them. Like I said, there there's so many
of them, um, each one with their own kind of
regional flare. I saw one very heartwarming YouTube comment that's
not a common phrase. Uh, where the whoever it was
was just like I remember every Friday night it was,

(24:42):
you know, some particular local pizza delivery place in Sammy Terry.
Ah see that was That was event television. That's what
they call it now. Yeah, all right, no, no, they
don't call it event television. Appointment television. That was appointment television.
All right, Well, we're gonna go ahead and close out
this mail bag. We'd love to hear from you. As always,
we do listener mail on Monday's in the Stuff to

(25:04):
Blow your Mind podcast feed right in about core episodes
of the show, past and present, right in about past,
present and future episodes of Weird House Cinema. Everything's fair game.
We'd love to hear from you, like Joe said at
the top of the episode, even if it's just to
say hi, huge things. As always to our excellent audio
producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. Once more, if you want to
get in touch with us for any reason at all,

(25:26):
it is contact at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of I
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