Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. Listen your mail My name is Robert Lamb.
And I'm Joe McCormick. And it is Monday, the day of each week that we read back messages from the Stuff to Blow your Mind mail bag. If you want to put your own entry into the mail bag, why not contact us. You can write a set contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Whatever you want to send is fine. Of course, we always appreciate feedback to recent episodes, especially if you have something interesting to
add to a topic we've already talked about. One example of that would be we recently did a couple of episodes that were called Oil over Troubled Water that were about the history of beliefs and scientific investigation of what happens when you pour oil on top of water, especially the idea that pouring oil on water can still the waves.
There are folk tales of this going way way back hundreds of years, and then it turned out in the eighteenth century Benjamin Franklin did experiments on this very subject. He ended up walking around the world with a hollow cane that was full of olive oil that he would like pour in people's ponds to show them how the oil would spread out over the surface.
Yeah, I had like a James Bond cane with a little bit of oil in it.
Anyway, Stephan writes in to add to this subject, Stephan says, thank you for your inspiring episodes about oil and water. As a chemist, I am particularly interested in everything concerning liquids and surfaces, no matter if they are muddy or oily. With water and a drop of oil, just regular stuff from the kitchen shelf, no special oil is needed. You can demonstrate the principle of a jet propulsion drive. It's
a funny experiment, especially suitable for children. All you need is a bowl of water, not too big, even a soup plate will do, and a small piece of cardboard in the shape of a two D boat. Now cut out a piece of cardboard at the blunt end of the boat's silhouette. Make a hole in the shape of an old fashioned key hole. So Stefan explains a spoiler alert, I did this so, Yeah, you have kind of like a house shape and elongated house shape. It's like a box with a point on one end. And then at
the back of the boat. You have this key hole cutout shape creates a circular hole and then a funnel shape leading away from it, leading out into the back of the water. Stephan attached to drawing for us, But that doesn't help you, the listener out there. But Stephan says, put this two dimensional boat flat on the surface of the water in your bowl slowly because you'll need a calm surface, and let a drop of oil fall into the circular part of the key hole shaped cut off.
The oil will immediately spread out on the surface of the water, thereby pushing the small boat a little bit forward. Have a try. Thanks again for your work and for many greetings to the entire Stuff team. Stephan, well, I can report I, just before we recorded, tried this experiment in front of Rachel and the baby and it worked, though it took a couple of tries for some reason, I'm not sure exactly why. The first time I tried it, I did it in a plate with a full of water.
I did the cutout in the cardboard, and then the first time it was a complete failure. The second time I tried it with a different cardboard boat after the first one got soaked through. But I dropped the oil in the hole and then the boat zipped across the surface of the water, and I guess what's going on here is Yeah, so the oil wants to spread out in as thin a layer as possible on the top of the water, and it can't do that when it's in the little circular hole at the top of the
key hole at the back of the boat. So then it wants to spread out continuing across the water, and must do so by spreading through the funnel shape at the back of the boat. And it pushes the cardboard boat forward as it continues to spread going.
Out the back. Oh, very cool.
I wonder if the difference, because it did work the first time I tried it, and it did the second. I wonder if it's that the cardboard was thinner on my second run. That may have something to do with it.
Well, that is neat. We don't often get to conduct science experiments based on listener mail, so this this was fun.
Yeah, we read about them a lot, don't get to do them often enough.
Yeah, sometimes we shouldn't. Definitely should not do them, because I was they're a little more on the dangerous end of the spectrum. All right, This next one comes to us from Levi. Levi says, Hello, Joe and Rob. I just wanted to send you both a quick email to say thank you from the bottom of my heart for your dedication to what you do. The shows you produce are thoughtful and well crafted and really unlike anything else
out there. Please also pass my thanks onto the engineer and others who work so hard to make the podcast happen. I've been listening since twenty fifteen when I discovered your episode about Earth being the planet of fire, and I was hooked. Your show was a welcome bright spot through a really awful period in life, and you have both become familiar comforts. I'm sure you are inundated with quote
unquote helpful suggestions for topics. Well, they're always helpful, but I had the notion the other day while playing music that electric guitars could potentially be an interesting deep dive all the science and innovation behind creating them, but also the utter chaos and weirdness of effect pedals and the endless array of sounds possible with them. Feel free to file this away in the eye roll, Ben if you'd like. Sincere best wishes and warm regards. Levi.
Oh, well, first of all, thank you very much for the kind words, LEVI. Also, I would say, you know, I have a mixed reaction to this, because on one hand, I think an Invention episode on electric guitars and effects pedals would be a wonderful idea, though I ended up having a kind of curious reaction the more I thought about doing this on the show, and then I kind of became more interested in my reaction than in the topic itself. But this is what I ended up thinking.
Rob.
So the electric guitar is a topic that I have a hunch I would have a frustrating time preparing an episode on and would ultimately do a bad job of explaining in the episode because it's a topic that I already know a good bit about. But I feel like the knowledge I have is not the right kind of knowledge.
So I play electric guitar, and I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about electric guitars, but I don't have like deep technical knowledge about how they work or much about I don't know that much about the history of their invention, and I could be wrong, but I feel like this is the wrong position to be in this is the position where it actually makes it harder to cover a subject than if you started off knowing nothing at all, if you were totally unfamiliar, because I
feel like there may have been things sort of in this category before where I already had a sort of personal familiarity, and it creates a feeling that one should have lots more to say and lots more to share. But then if you start trying to say those things, it feels like you have to say it turns out you've never tried to put them into words before, and ultimately maybe they're not very insightful or not very generally interesting.
I think topics like this lend themselves to an illusion of having more to say than you do, and that's not a good place to be in when you when you're recording a podcast, you know that's supposed to be interesting for other people. Rob does that make any sense? And have you ever had this experience when making the show?
I would say maybe sometimes, not often, but sometimes I feel like this within a weird house selection, Like there might be a film that I have a lot of maybe a lot of history with, and then I realized that, yeah, a lot of my knowledge about the film is more like, it's more like feelings and internalized things, and I haven't really stopped and sort of even put them in words in my head before. And sometimes it's just part of
the exercise of getting ready for the episode. But other times, you know, there might be some detail about it where we actually get into recording and I was like, oh, I don't think I've actually, you know, attempted to explain how I feel about this before, and it's probably come up with some topics before when I'm just nothing, I'm struggling to come up with an example from a stuff to blow your mind episode.
I know exactly what you're talking about. With Weird House, there are I feel like, some of the hardest episodes to do, and some of the ones where I've felt the least like I did a good job of making an interesting and entertaining episode were the ones where I had kind of a history with the movie and I already had a lot of feelings about it.
Yeah. Yeah, Like if I'm if I'm going to try and share my excitement about, say, George Eastman popping up in a film, you know, it's like I need to be able to say more than like and it's George Eastman, and like as if you already have the same emotions that I do when his name and his grinning face comes up, Like, you know, I need to I need to actually explain why this is noteworthy.
Yeah, and I think you can get there. But this is one of the to come back to a topic I've also talked about on the show before, the idea that I feel like I often don't know what I think about a subject until I've tried to write about it. I feel like maybe it's episodes where you know you already have some kind of relationship with the topic and feelings about it that really benefit from a good bit
of pre writing. Otherwise, you go in with the impression that you're going to be able to talk extemporaneously about a subject in a compelling way, and then you oops, you can't. Actually you just kind of get mushmouthed and realize that the things it feels like you have to say are not actually things that are worth saying, and you should have tried to write about it first. At least that's my feeling about myself now.
As far as electric guitars specifically goes as a topic in a way This would be perfect because you have some experience and some knowledge. I have very little experience with with guitars. Even I have no idea how electric guitar works really, so I know what I like when I hear it, but yeah, I don't know anything about actually how they function. So we could do an episode where I ask questions about how an electric guitar works, and then you answer, but not with words, but by
noodling on the electric guitar. Yeah, and we do that for about, like, you know, an hour and a half.
Yeah, I'm gonna give you a little slightly out of tune, slightly off tempo lick here to think about. But anyway, Yeah, so thank you again, Levi for suggesting this topic. I think it could be a really interesting subject, and I just have to recognize that it would probably be more difficult and require more intensive preparation than it feels like it should than my you know, than the illusion my familiarity might might create in my brain about what I
already know. And anyway, if this hunch is correct, I think it's kind of interesting that it manifests this way. Sometimes that like the ideal stance from which to talk about a subject in a compelling way is to either have like a genuine mastery or expertise in a in a linguistic sense, like this is something you've already read and written a lot about and so you can form
what is interesting about it into words quite readily. Or you need to be a kind of outsider who's just done a bunch of research for the first time on that subject. There's kind of a danger zone in the middle where you're already overly familiar with something on the basis of direct private personal interest, but you've never you know, you've never turned that into a communication before.
Yeah, I think we've mentioned before, like that's that's the place, at least for my case, that's where I run a greater risk of getting something wrong on the podcast, where it's just something that I think, I know, it's not directly related to what we're researching and recording. So yeah, yeah, these are these are good points, and I think that Yeah, I think one of the strengths of the show is that is that you're you're listening to curious general us
who are not experts in the topics they're covering. They are going in and exploring these topics for you. Slash with you. However, you want to interpret the experience of listening to an informative podcast.
Right, And I think one thing we tried to do to help drive that home always is we talk about our research process a lot. Instead of just like here's the encyclopedia entry. We like talk about our experience of learning about the issue.
Yeah, all right, shall we dive into a little Weird House Cinema mail? Ah? Yeah?
Yeah, how about this message from Christopher. Christopher says, Hi, longtime listener to your podcast, especially a fan of Weird House Cinema, which is my favorite thing to see coming up in my podcast feed. I recently watched the tabletop RPG spinoff movie Mutant Chronicles with some friends. Preparatory to the email, here says staying off a campaign of the game. I think maybe Christopher means starting off a campaign of the game. That would make sense, and we all agreed
that it is awesomely weird. I've been meaning to mail you guys as a suggestion and only now realized how new it is. Two thousand and eight is maybe too recent for weird House, but otherwise I think it's a good fit. Failing that, perhaps one of my old favorites, also starring Ron Pearlman The City of Lost Children from nineteen ninety five. Keep up the good work, Christopher ah Well.
Thanks Christopher Well. First of all, this year we did expand our range on Weird House Cinnam into the twenty first century, at least a little bit. So as of right now, from the nineteen twenties through the twenty twenties, we've covered films from every decade except the dreaded twenty tens, which I'm kidding. There's definitely some stuff from the twenty tens we could cover, but thus far we have not
done it. Now. As for two thousand and eights, Mutant Chronicles in particular, I do remember when this one came out, I don't, I guess I saw the trailer. I remember seeing stills. I know I've picked up the box at Video Drome, the rental store here in Atlanta, but I've never seen it. I looked it up again. Yeah, it has a solid cast. I like a number of the individuals that are in it. And I was vaguely familiar with Mutant Chronicles the RPG from seeing the materials for
it in bookstores over the years. Mostly, you know, looking at the cover art, which tends to have this kind of colorful euro comic vibe, reminds me a little bit of like two thousand and eighty, a little bit of various Warhammer covers, especially the older Warhammer covers an yea and some nice splashes of color. I look at stills from this film and I just don't see that same visual vibe. It looks all a little dreary, and I think that's the reason I never picked it up and
never gave it a chance. But who knows that. I mean, you know, if Christopher thinks it's weird and worth a second look, then maybe I should check it out.
I mean, Rob, I think one fair thing to consider is this kind of dreary looking color palette, the kind of gray, brown and orange color palette there was common to many movies in the two thousands, is also right there in one of your favorites. That's sort of the vibe of Chronicles Riddic.
True, True, Chronicles of Ritic does have that that basic color scheme or lack thereof, But I don't know, Yeah, this one might have to just really bite the bullet and give this one a go, because again, I like like all the folks in this. You got Thomas Jane, you got Ron Pearlman, you got Bino Fuhman, who I've grown to really love on Babylon Berlin the German. It's a historic crime series. It's really good. You got John
Malkovich in there. So yeah, a lot of solid actors, and I'm generally down for some sort of weird post apocalyptics type thing. So I don't know. I wonder if they'll ever be an effort to put films off this Nature Grant technic color with like they're so fat and let's get some color in there. Yeah, because you see a lot of the reverse like where they're like, this is so good, let us do it in black and white as well, and this like yeah, the miss they did on an episode of one of the episodes of
Cabinet of Curiosities too. I noticed the one about the rat episode, the grave robber episode, that is rather good. But yeah, they also put it in black and white. I wonder if we should get back into doing some sort of some of the color colorization and the weird colorization once more.
I do feel like this has kind of been a force pushing me away from selecting movies from the two thousands for weird House Cinema because a lot of the like sci fi and horror type movies of this period, movies in our kind of genre zone have this this horrible, murky, dreary look. They've got you know, cgi that just wasn't quite there yet, but the movie is full of it, and they've got this you know, earth tones, but not
the nice kind. It just kind of just gloomy, dreary, unexciting color palettes and and not enough actual props and sets.
Yeah, yeah, I think again. It's one of the reasons I love Panos Cosmnics's stuff so much, because, yeah, the sets are there and the color is definitely there. Say what you will about Panos Cosmonics films, but they are colorful.
Yes, But I don't know, I'm here, I'm just judging off of like a few screenshots in the posters, so maybe that's not yet representative. I'd give it a shot.
Yeah, I mean, plus, we love some black and white films, so yeah. Now, as far as The City of Lost Children specifically goes, oh, I mean that obviously is a great film. I haven't seen it in a number of years, but for a while it was one of my favorites. I think when I was first turned on to it, you know, I was like, oh, well, this is great. It's French cinema from here on out, and we do
need to watch some French cinema on Weirdelse Cinema. In addition to keeping track of the decades we've covered, we have yet to cover an actual French film. We've you know, covered some stuff with French talent in it, but nothing you could really say, you know, this is this is French cinema.
Well, as long as we're talking about Jean Pierre June, I know you're you're trying to needle me into talking about Alien Resurrection.
Well, yeah, obviously that's a that it as one of the films he directed. I don't know if it's a great example of French cinema per se. It does have his fingerprints on it. It has a lot of people's fingerprints on it. And Ron Pearlman, Yeah, Ron Pearlman's in there. I mean, Brad Doro, I mean, you got you got a tremendous cast in that film. You've got some you've got monsters, you've got a daring take on the franchise. But also I guess a lot of stuff that just
really doesn't quite work. This is a film you famously hate too, you.
Know our attitude, we try to find things to like and appreciate, even about you know, b movies and stuff that's not not great in a traditional critical sense. But oh yeah, that's one I can't really mask. I just don't like it. It's it's gross and it's ugly, and it's just I don't know that. The sights and the
sounds are not what I want in my brain. It just and I think it also maybe maybe part of it's just emotional to me because I love the early Alien movies so much, you know, the first two are are some of my favorites, and seeing it go to go to that place just causes pain.
Well, you know, maybe maybe City or Lost Children or Delicatessen would be something to consider. And I know, as far as French film in general goes, eyes without a Face has been kind of like up there as a possibility, but we've we've yet to really pull the trigger. So we'd love to hear from folks out there. If you are an officionado of weird French cinema, hit us up with some recommendations because we need to check that one off the list.
You know, there's one I was looking at just the other day, a French fantasy musical that is in Michael Weldon's collection called Donkey Skin. I've never seen it.
Oh yeah, I'm I'm familiar with the listing, but I haven't s this one either.
I don't know how weird it actually is. But it made the Psychotronic Guide and it's got a reputation for being quite good. But yeah, I don't know anything else about it. It's got donkey in the title, it's French. They sing songs.
Well, next time I go into video drama, I'll ask, dear sir, do you have Donkey Skin? All right?
One last message today. This is from Lee. Lisays, good day, Rob, Joe and JJ, replying to your request for feedback from first time viewers of The Maze. I will echo your feelings that the film had a tendency to drag a bit.
Yes it did.
Oh and a brief spoiler. If you haven't actually watched The Maze, watch out here we go. Lisays, honestly I missed the telltale toad, but not that it was a creature. Somewhat obscured by the darkness, but the toadiness got by me, most likely because I had been lulled a bit by the overall pace of the film. This refers to a part later in the movie where characters see a gigant toad or frog scampering into a secret passageway and you
sort of see the back half of it. The spoiler for the ending of the film is that it turns out the entire movie is about the master of a Scottish castle being secretly a giant frog.
Yes, and part of our discussion in the episode was, well, what would it be like for a first time viewer? Would you really notice the toad butt Because we were looking for it. We knew that what the spoiler was going to be. We knew there was going to be a giant frog or toad at the end of the of the of the movie, and we were wondering what would it be like for everyone else.
Now, there's another thing that we couldn't quite explain, which is that when they go up to the giant frog's secret chambers, when our Holmes and Watson of the film what's her name? Kitty and Aunt Edith?
Is that right? Yep?
They go up to the chambers and they find a bowl of tomatoes. So what's the significance of that. I don't know. Tomatoes. Is that what giant frogs are just known to eat? We had no idea, but Li says one comment about the bowl of tomatoes. About the tomatoes. At first thought a tomato consuming creature had me flashing back to the children's story Bunicula. Is this about a vampire rabbit that eats vegetables?
I think so. I didn't know anything about this till I noticed our coworker, Laren Vogelbaum, wearing a T shirt that had this rabbit and this slogan or this franchise title on it. I'd never heard of it.
The wiki says Binicula is the titular character, a harmless rabbit with unusual eating habits and minor vampiric qualities. All right, fair enough, But Lee's email goes on A second thought had me wondering if the tomatoes were not so much the primary food of the creature but bait to attract flies all the like. Just a thought, Hey, yeah, that's an idea.
There we go, there we go. Of course, this is a pretty big frog er Toe you might be going after rats and mice, which you know, it still makes still stands. Put some rotten tomatoes out there and get the rodents in and then his lordship can feased.
Rats and mice. I mean that's that's like finger foods that it's going after, like goats and donkeys and stuff.
Yeah, not that we see anything like that in the film.
No, but sorry. Even just this line about attraction flies just briefly sent me into a rage because we I bought some fresh fruit earlier this week and we've had it sitting out on the counter as we've been eating through it. But now it's start. The fruit flies have attacked.
Time to bust out the vinegar and the dish up.
Does that work for you? I've had it work a little bit occasionally, but overall it's a bust for me.
I've had it work very well for me if I but but two things. I have to buy the specialized little container that doesn't tip over, that looks like a little fruit or something that has been surprising helpful. And I have I look up a recipe and I'd be very I try to be very precise in how I'm doing it, because where when I haven't had any luck with it. Is when I thought I could just sort of throw it together.
Okay, interesting, I think I have tried to throw it together and that that didn't work. So maybe maybe i'll I'll stick to the recipe and see.
If it works.
But anyway, sorry. To finish out Lee's email, Li says about the Maze overall a fun watch and would recommend That's very generous of you, Lee, But Lee also says, I watched Invaders from Mars upon your recommendation. I found it to be pretty cool film as well. Wow those costumes, Yes, there are some really stunning, super weird costumes in that. Li says, love the podcast regards.
All right, and here's one final one. This one comes to is from Kenny. Kenny says, Hi, Rob, Joe, and JJ I would love for you to consider Star Trek to the Wrath of Khan for weird house. First off, it's my favorite Kirk era movie. I assume that's Trek movies, but it could be just Kirk Era movies in general. I mean, this is a highly regarded film, no joking. It's a proper swashbuckling yarn filled to the brim with the sort of ponderous yet thrilling naval action you might
find in Master and Commander or Hornblower. It has William Shatner, somehow playing second fiddle in the scenery chewing department to Ricardo Montaban's gloriously mad khn Noonan Singh, a bare chested moby Dick quoting genetically enhanced superhuman on a quest for vengeance. It has a wonderful score by none other than James Horner. It has brilliant practical effects and an ill judged immersion
breaking CGI sequence. It has a hero and antagonist who not only failed to have a punch up at the end of the movie, but are never even present in the same room. It's a brilliant story of revenge and loss of unwei than the rediscovery of one's calling. This is the original Star Trek cast at their best, as director Nicholas Meyer crafted a follow up to the terminally slow paced motion picture Ak Star Trek, the motion picture in the first example of the even numbered Trek movies
being better. Keep up the amazing work.
Kenny, Oh yeah, Kenny, Well, I gotta gotta agree with that. I'm I'm a big fan of Wrath of Khan it's it's super solid.
Yeah, like even if you're not a big big fan of like Kirk Era Trek, I mean, it's wrap to con it's it's the it's the best of those movies by far. I think.
I said when we were covering uh, what, oh, what's the cult melting movie? The melting movie train, Well, we were talking about that and I was saying, you know, of course William Shatner can be a total hand, but sometimes he's quite good. And the example I gave was the the Nicholas Meyer star Trek movies. I think he's totally good in those.
Yeah. Yeah, strong cast. I mean you get the traditional cast, but then you have you have some great players in it as well, especially Ricardo Montmt.
Only change I would have introduced is have uh, have con quote Moby Dick even more. Do the whole monologues about like it was looking in a mirror and seeing steam rising off of his head in the summer, and about the like the blast out of the blowhole, and then do the chapter about the guy cutting out the skin of the whales penis and turning into a coat and all that stuff.
Yeah, the extended director's cut.
Okay, I think that's got to do it for today.
All right, Well, we're going to go and close up the mail bag then, but hey, we'd love to hear from everyone out there. If you have thoughts on recent episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind, Weird House, Cinema, Artifact, Monster Fact, other episodes of Listener mail, write in let us know I I mean, write in about older episodes, write in about potential future episodes of all of these shows.
All of that is fair game huge thanks to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. 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 hi, you can email us at contact at stuff to blow your Mind dot com.
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