Listener Mail: A Giallo is Born

Let's see, Robbie mind if I start off here with this message from Justina? Go for it. Okay. This is actually response to a much older episode our series on the Seven Day Week in the origins UH and effects of grouping days into chunks of seven. So justina writes. Hi, Robert and Joe. I'm about six months behind on my podcast feed, so I just listen to your seven day

week episodes. When you started musing about what it would be like to live on two different week lengths simultaneously, like some ancient cultures might have done, I heard the call. I know what it's like, and so do millions of school children. I was in the first class in my school district to experience the six day cycle. This was back in nineteen eighty one to eighty two, and the idea was new. Instead of having a class schedule that followed Monday to Friday, we now had days a through F.

The reasons behind the six day cycle were twofold. One, it let the different academic classes happen at different times a day, since we all learned best at different times of day. This way, math class wasn't always period one and your foggy morning brain wouldn't put you behind for the whole year. Number two, it also made sure classes didn't get shorted or skipped to due to holidays. If the last day of school before a break was c day, the first day back would be a d day, regardless

of the day of the week. What made the whole experience particularly dual timeline issue is the fact that the six day cycle only applied to our academic classes. Other classes like Jim, music, shop and the like stayed on the old five day Monday to Friday schedule, so we were truly living two different weeks simultaneously. What did it feel like? It felt well normal. We had a system, we understood the system and we just followed the schedule. The fact that we might have English before music one

week and math the next wasn't a big deal. I imagine the people in ancient cultures living two different cycles also adapted easily. I suspect that the convergence to a single system had more to do with the Times. Two different types of market days overlapped, causing a personnel shortage, rather than confusion about what day it was by the population. These days, school calendars are totally wild. Take, for example, the schedule for my local high school, and she includes

some links. They are trying to have classes at different times of day in a balanced way and, oh, also balanced the lunch times and other variables. It leads to this madness, but the kids, they do it, they understand it, they master it, so I think living both a seven and eight day week would have been a piece of cake. Smiley face, thanks for making my favorite podcast. All the best,

Justina W oh well, that's interesting. Yeah, I didn't even think about academic calendars, but that's that's a wonderful example. All right. This next one comes to us from Kenny. Kenny writes in regarding our episode, or was it an episode or episodes on the paradig series. Yeah, serious, yeah, sometimes it's hard to remember. Sometimes it's hard to remember when we have done an episode that was actually a single episode. Uh, a lot of our episodes are multipart

these days. But Anyway, Kenny writes in and says, Dear Robin Joe, I did not know I would find the invention of the paragraph quite so fascinating. I was even able to answer a pub quiz question on the pill crow this week, which was a mighty coincidence, given I'd never heard the word before in my life. As per rob's request, here are some of my favorite opening paragraphs. Some are probably pretty obvious. So Kenny sites the gunslinger opening from from Stephen King. The man in black fled

across the desert and the gun slinger followed. We heard from multiple people about this one. This is a great opening. But then here's some other ones that Kenny includes. Uh, in a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat. It was a hobbit hole, and that means comfort, and that is that, of course, is

from the hobbit. That's a great one. Uh, here's one. This is one from a book by the name of the title the Crow Road by Ian Banks, WHO's an author I'm I'm very familiar with, but I have not read this particular book. If I'm remembering correctly, this would be one of the non sci fi books, because the like the culture books and so forth are by Ian in banks, and Ian Banks is just his what he goes by, what he went by for books that were outside of science fictional concerns. Quote. It was the day

my grandmother exploded. I sat in the crematorium listening to my uncle Hamish quietly snoring in a harmony to box mass in B minor, and I reflected it that it always seemed to be death that drew me back to Glanok. I have no idea where that's going, but that already that sounds pretty intriguing. Once the grandmothers are exploding. Um, there's music playing, galenock, this sounds very fascinating as well. Uh So, yes, uh, that sounds like a good one.

That's a good hook. Alright. This one is from a work that I'm not familiar with the Patricia mckillop riddle of stars. Quote. Morgan of head met the High Ones Harpist one autumn day when the trade ships docked at toll for the season's exchange of goods. Oh, that's the high ones harpist. Wow. Yeah, yeah, and again, and we got a nice fantasy or sci fi sounding name. There a couple of names. UH, there's a trade ships. Sounds

a fantasy novel. Yeah, alright, here's here's one. Um, I'm going to read it and some of you may be able to guess the source. In the beginning the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move. This is, of course, from Douglas Adams, the restaurant at the end of the universe. Strong entry. And finally, this one. This one is also this is from a book I'm

familiar with. Everything starts somewhere, although many physicists disagree. That is from Terry Pratchett's the hog father, which is a yea, a wonderful Christmas read, and they also made a wonderful TV mini series, or two part series, adaptation of it. At David Warner in it played the head of the guild of assassins, if I remember correctly. Oh Wow, I don't know this book or this movie or Adaptation. But Yeah, David Warner, I'm there anyway. Kenny, that says you'll probably

be swamped by day, so I'll stop there. Thanks for all you do. Good picks, Kenny. Um. All Right, I think we did a vault episode on sentient swords or swords that talk uh, and we got a response from Michaela, who writes. Hi, Robert and Joe, first of all, thank you so much for the work you put into this amazing podcast. I was listening to the vault episode on sentient weapons and it reminded me of a few things. One of them is this sentient shield that I had

home brewed. I think this is a d and d reference. Right, yes, okay, that, while very useful, it had an annoying personality. Thinking back, I don't know of any named sentient armor in mythology or in D and D. magical armor absolutely exists, but not named or sentient in the way weapons tend to be. Perhaps it's harder to ascribe agency to our Mur as

armor rarely works in unexpected ways. That combatants don't directly control, but even then one might say it was the armor that moved them rather than their instinctual reactions driven by adrenaline in the midst of battle. Any thoughts? Second was one thing that I've been meaning to ask for a while, and it's if you have ever brought something from your research into a homebrew in one of your D and

D Games. I know I've paused many of your shows to jot down some mythical item or cool, weird real life place, creature or thing that might work in a D and D setting. I'm not sure how I'll fit them all in at this point when I eventually run a game, but I'm very excited to see how players react. Keep up the good work, Michaela. Well, that's yeah, so homebrewing, for anyone unfamiliar, this is basically like when you you create something for a game and you can homebrew, maybe

homebrewing the stats of something. Generally it's about stats, like if you're you're homebrewing a particular magic particular magical item or homebrewing a particular creature, that sort of thing. Like you're saying, like you create a creature for your dn d campaign, that does not exist in the monster manual right, yeah, which which is is a rarity, especially now. It's like if they if they don't have it in there officially,

then somebody's probably home brooded. Over the years. Uh, there there have been some wonderful like third party publications that have come up with a lot of that stuff. Um, like, I guess in the fact in the past. I have done that sort of thing before, but it becomes, Um,

I don't know. My experience that you sometimes risk running into the situation where you have some sort of idea that you're suddenly really excited to introduce into the role playing, either as a character, as as a player or as a dungeon master, and you can get so excited about that idea you kind of forget that this is also ultimately about the communal experience and maybe everyone else doesn't know about this thing and they're not as excited for it,

and so it ultimately ends up being something that's mostly just for you. Um. But that being said, of course there are tons of great ideas in mythology and in history to draw up on and UH, yeah, I mean one can't help but do that a bit if you're doing any kind of creative work within a role playing scenario,

either as a player or as a game master. My favorite one I've heard about was the listener who wrote in to say that they had home brewed, uh, the psychic mind devouring giant crabs from attack of the crab monsters by combining attributes of, I think it, kind of base giant crab monster with like some mind flavor kind of dynamics. That's right, that was a good one alright. This next one comes to us from Troy. Troy writ sin says. Hi, Robert, Joe and Seth, thanks for reviewing

krawl in one of your weird house cinema episodes. It brought back many memories as a result of the episode. I shared your podcast with my brother and he said he liked the episode and we'll be shopping for a glave replica on that's all right. Would be careful. The glave looks kind of dangerous to handle, so make sure you check on just how sharp it is. This might be a reaction to the fact that I found glave

fidget spinners on Etsy. That's great anyway. Troy continues Um and this is the portion of the email that I referenced in a recent core episode. Troy right, right, and says Robert, you said that you don't consider swimming fun, but I would say it's only a chore if your performance is below your expectation. I find running around the lake near my house very fun and extremely challenging. I envisioned impaired and can usually pick out a pedestrian within

about twenty to thirty feet. Beyond that distance it looks like fog. Since I run typically at around a eight twenty minute pace. That's eight minute twenty seconds, uh pace. It is quite a rush trying to avoid collisions. I carry my white cane folded up and enjoy saying hi to people that I've passed. Two laps around the lake is roughly seven miles, and the run makes me feel accomplished and independent. That's good. Like I said, that there's a lot of a lot of fun is inherently subjective.

Like I would you know me personally, I would say, well, something can I can make me feel accomplished and independent, but and it can also make me, you can also feel like like work. So it's, like I say, it varies greatly from individual to individual, but I enjoy hearing these alternate takes on it anyway. Troy continues. Troy says I think a potential topic down the road would be assistive technology for the blind or disabled in general. I

believe you did an episode on prosthetics. My audio screen reader called Jaws enables me to work on the computer literally with my eyes closed. This is a great idea for an episode. Yeah, I know we've talked about prosthetics a little bit. I remember talking about like ancient Egyptian examples of prosthetics. I believe there's a particular toe that's rather ancient, ancient Um. But yeah, yeah, we haven't. We haven't done a real deep dive into and even prosthetics.

I don't think have we? I mean I think I don't think we've had a dedicated episode about it, but it's like come up in other contents. One thing we definitely did is, uh, we did an invention episode on Brail. That's right, kind of fascinating and surprising history of reading system touch based reading systems. Yeah, so that's the great suggestion and Troy is not done making great suggestions, because they say is last I wanted to give one movie

suggestion for you guys to cover. If it has not already been covered, I recommend the last dragon from this movie fits the fun category of Weird House Cinema. The Part I love the most is when either character in a fight scene appears to be getting the upper hand, they start emitting a glowing neon color from their teeth. I tried googling letter boxed Weird House cinema and was unable to find the list of past movies. If the above film is not in the list, you may want

to check it out. Cheers. Okay. Well, first of all, yes, letterbox, that's L E T T E R B o x. d uh. Yeah, if you go there, if you look for a weird house, one word, that's that's our account should come up, and we only have one list and that's the list of the episodes. Um, so, Um, it is there. Um. So, my apologies if anybody, as they'd find, had trouble finding it. Um, it's also linked off of the blog at some Muta, some MUTA MUSIC DOT com. But in terms of the last Dragon, Y, yeah, this

is one that's been on my radar. In fact, I was telling I was talking with you about it just a few weeks back. Um, I one of the reasons on my radars because it was one of the films profiled on the CBC ideas episode that dealt with cult movies. This is one that they singled out as being a cult film. Uh, you know, despite the fact that I think I don't, I remember in correctly, the last dragon wasn't a huge financial hit by any means, but it's

it's so distinct. It's like a is a like a like a a motown um production, like an epic motown production with martial arts and fantasy and love and great music and it's it's a little unlike anything else you might expect to find. It looks absolutely magical. I haven't seen it, but I would love to. So this is a romantic martial arts musical produced by Barry Gordy, like

it sometimes called Berry Gordy's last dragon. Berry Gordy the the music, music producer, record executive known like he was the writer, or one of the writers of like I want you back, like classic songs like that. Yeah, and and the founder of the motown record label. Yeah, yeah, so, yeah, it's true motown production and uh, you know, has a pretty great cast and uh, yeah, I haven't watched it in its entirety. Yet weirdly enough, William H macy is in it. He has like a been role, but he's

he's in the cast Um. But yeah, this one's definitely on the list. It's just kind of I guess it's kind of week to week what catches our fancy, but I have a feeling we'll get to the last dragon at some point here. Alright. This next message is from Casey. Casey says, hi, Robert and Joe. Recently some of my son's friends introduced him to the world of Dungeons and dragons and he was asking me to explain dungeons to him. I realized that I really don't know much about them.

From the movies, I've learned that a dungeon is basically a basement of a castle that functions as a jail or torture chamber or where one might find the occasional potions classroom or slytherin common room. I thought the history and usage of real dungeons, versus their depiction and pop culture, might be a good subject for you to cover on your show, in the same vein as your cauldron episodes.

My son would also like to suggest that you cover the beholder or the gelatinous cube on a monster fact episode. On a different note, I was unfamiliar with the Jallo Genre until I heard you talk about it on your show. UH, jallow movies or, of course, these kind of violent CD murder Italian murder mystery thrillers from the seventies, as some great jallow highlights, or like the movies of Dario Argento, like deep red and stuff. Anyway, Casey continues. So finding

out about the shallow genre, my mind immediately. You plugged it into the tune of shallow from a star is born. Oh, Casey, you have done violence to my brain by by doing this to me. UH, Casey says. I know I regularly find myself singing in the Jazz Jallo, in the Jalo. We're far from the Jalos now. I just thought I'd give you that little earworm on my way out. Thanks for all the wonderful content, Casey. Casey, this is a

crime you have committed. That you did this to me, that you did this to Robert and Seth and now you've done it to every listener to this show. Absolutely atrocious. Actually, I'm immune because I've seen need a version of a star is born and I don't think I'm familiar with this song. So, Oh, you know. Uh. So this is from the most recent one, the one with the Lady Lady Gaga Bradley Cooper, which, uh, I saw a couple of years ago. Actually. I thought it was great, and

this song is indeed. It's great pop melodrama. It's yeah, it'll get in you. Yeah, I didn't see it. Looked like he might be a downer. So, oh, yeah, kind of. It kind of is, but it's also, I don't know, I thought it was good. whistlers. Not In it, though? Right, no, Oh, he's in the one from the seventies, isn't he? It's like Barbra streisand and Chris Christofferson. Right, Sam Elliot's in the new one, though. Right, yes, Sam Elliott, I think,

plays Um Bradley Cooper's brother, maybe. Is that right? That sounds right. Like, yeah, it's like he's like a much older brother. Right, he's kind of his sort of manager or something. Yeah, but it's yeah, it's got great music, it's full of emotion, it's all that stuff, all right. It does not have a like an unknown assailant going around killing hands. It does not have like a needle killer who wears a trench coat and a hat. Now, of course there are jellow musicals, though, or at least there's.

Oh yeah, Folgi did one in particular. Um, yeah, there's the movie murder, Rock, dancing death, which which I have not seen, but you know it has, uh uh, Claudio Cassinelli's in it. So you know that. That that tells you something. It has music, it has stabbings, uh, you know, everything you could possibly want out of a luccio Fulci musical. I don't even know what to say about that. All right, we're gonna and call it right there. But with we thank everybody who wrote in for this episode and, yeah,

and in general, we should remind everyone. Yeah, we we read all the emails that come in. We don't we don't have time to respond to everybody via email and we don't have have time to even use all of the emails on the show, but we greatly appreciate all the feedback, so keep it coming. If you have comments on recent episodes of stuff to blow your mind, future episodes of stuff to blow your mind, episodes of Weird House artifact, monster fact, other listener mail episodes, all of

it is fair Games. So right in. We'd love to hear from you. Huge thanks, as always, to our excellent audio producer, Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future or just to say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff to blow your mind dot com. Stuff to blow your mind is a production of I heart radio.

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