Listener Mail: Goat Throne

congrats again to Joe and family. I was actually out walking in the neighborhood just a day or two after the birth, and they have the whole family happened to be driving by me while I was walking around, so I got to peek in the back seat and actually see the baby, So that was pretty cool. Anyway. Brett continues longtime listener here, and nearly every episode makes me want to write in with thoughts or comments, and I

do frequently chime in on the discussion module. The discussion module for everyone out there, that's the Facebook group for this show. We don't really do much on social media. These days, Uh, you know, because social media. But we do have that Facebook group, the Stuff to Bow your Mind discussion module. You can go and request access to that and basically if you just know the name of

the podcast, you can get in there. We also have a discord group and if you email us and we'll send to the link for that so you can join up there. And really the only other presence we have online these days is the letterboxed l E T T E R b o x d dot com account. Our muser name there is Weird House, and that's just about the Weird House Cinema episodes. Anyway, I'll stop interrupting Brett

here because Brett continues. The series on goats brought to mind a favorite character with goat qualities, that of the poet Martin Silenus from the Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons, who, when battling writer's block, paid a body sculptor to transform him into a satyr and spent ten randy years in this form looking for his muse. Only the true artists suffer for their art. Keep up the great work, Brett.

I had completely forgotten about this. I read the first Hyperion book and uh, and and very much enjoyed it, but didn't press on with the series. Uh, there are definitely some memorable parts in that book that that's stuck with me. But I am totally blinking on this, so I don't know if this was a big part of the book, if this was just a sort of an offhand mention of something interesting and weird, or if perhaps this is something from a book I haven't read yet.

All right, so this is that we're going to receive a fair number of goat emails here, a lot. I mean, we did a three part series on goats, and then of course we have another episode that came out subsequently that concerns goats. So keep the goat related email coming. We'll detinue to read it, all right. This next one comes to us from M Well I have seen I had. I don't think I copied the name of this individual, but at any rate, this listener writes in and says, hi, Robert,

Joe and Seth. I will try to keep this short because I am a poor writer. Anyway. The Radio Lab podcast did an episode on the Galapagos Islands and shared the interesting but sad details about the Judas goats. Basically, when the island is covered in goats. It's easy to find them, but as you exterminate more and more, the remaining are hard to get. Judas goats have entered the game.

And then they include a bulleted list here, find a goat, sterilize and put a tracker on it, let it loose, wait about a week or two, and then track down the judaiscoat. Judas goats will have found more goats. Exterminate all the goats, but the judascote. Wait about a week or two, then track down the judascoat. Judas goat will have found more goats. Exterminate all the goats, but the Judas goat. You get the idea, and that is the sad and lonely life of a Judas goat. And they

included a link to the podcast episode. Yes, now that it's been brought to my attention, I do vaguely remember this episode of Radio Lab from from I think a number of years back, but I remember it being a good one now. But yeah, at the time, I had not been to the Clap of Ghost and did not really anticipated it was a place I would ever get to go to, so maybe it didn't have that personal

connection with me. At the time, but I certainly check that out if you want to, if you want to hear more on the use of Judicis coasts in the Galapago Silence. All right, let's see what we have next in this very goat themed episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. A listener mail this one comes to us from Oliver. Oliver writes in and says, Hi, Robert and Joe, I'm a big fan of the podcast and glad there's

a topic I can touch on. I grew up in Nimben, a small rural town in the northern Rivers of New South Wales, Australia, where my parents had plenty of mountainous acreage. For quite a few years, we had a small flock of goats to help with land clearing and vegetation control. We would also select a goat to eat each year or so. I have Fijian heritage and love the goat curry my dad would make. It's got to be one

of my favorite foods. Anyway, one time in high school, I was on school holidays and was home with my brothers. We suddenly heard a scream that to this day was the most blood curdling and heart racing I've ever heard. It sounded like a mixture between a humans and goats, and it was coming from where the goats were grazing. My brothers and I rushed down to find one of our adults stuck in a tree with her hoof lodged

between two branches that connected at a y shape. The screams were ear piercing and almost physically painful up close. We worked to lift her weight up off the hoof and dislodged her. We suspect she got into this predicament by standing on her rear legs with her front legs pressed against the tree when grazing up high. One leg must have slipped and between those two branches, trapping her.

Listening to these episodes reminded me of all the fun that comes with looking after goats, and I miss playing with them when I was a kid. Thank you for reigniting my goating memories. Keep on blowing minds, Oliver. Alright, this next one comes to us from Nyara Lethotep on Discord. I believe again our Discord group. If you want to join it, shoot me an email and I'll shoot you the link. Uh. They write, there was a Monty python writer's argument about whether a joke is funnier with a

sheep or a goat. I think the goat won by a beard. To your question about the biblical bias against goats, I think it comes down to nature. Goats wander sheep follow religion wants followers. Of course, I like that. You ask if there was a third option. Fortunately there is, meet the deep g e e P. There are multiple examples of goat sheep hybrids. Wikipedia claims there is also a goat sheep chimera. And cats go to the dark side of the moon when no one can find them.

It is a well known fact. Ah. These are excellent points. Yes, I I don't know that I was super aware of the geep, but indeed that they do exist. Uh. I would agree with Monty Python. I mean when in concerning matters of matters of humor and the absurd. Uh they are and we're experts, So yeah, I would say a goat is inherently funnier than a sheep, in the same way that cheese is funnier than butter. Uh. And then

there's just no denying it. And yes, cats going to the dark side of the moon where no one can find them I believe this stems from some of the short fiction of of HP. Lovecraft, though in all likelihood he he got it from somewhere as well. I mean, these folk traditions of black cats and the nature of cats certainly goes way back. All right, let's see, do we have something else about goats? We do have more goats. Listener mail here to read this one, says Hi, Robert

and Joe. This one, by the way, is from Susan. I love the show. I ate up the Goats slash Devil episodes. For a couple of years, I was a groom an exercise writer at a fox hunting barn outside of Columbus, Georgia. This hunt used a herd of about two hundred goats and their smell to desynsitize the foxhounds too deer. Foxhounds normally are distracted by deer and chase

deer instead of the fox. The master of hounds had discovered that if the hounds had a herd of goats living all around the kennels, they were not excited by deer scent in the field. So far as I know, he was unique in having solved this problem this way. He imported a special long haired goat type Egyptian goats and pictures included here for me anyway, maybe because they are super stinky. The herd roamed around the kennels and

stables at will. When they ambled into the stables every pre dawn, it's sounded like a crowd of farty, sneezing, coughing old people. It's not only their calls that sound human. Again, thanks for the great show, great fun and info, Susan Oh. Now, I was really fascinated by this. I've never heard this, and I'm not super familiar with the practices of a fox hunting and so forth, but this, this is fascinating.

Thanks for sending this in. And I love the the tidbit about the farti sneezing, coughing fits of the goat and how this also made them sound more human. And again I was I'm reminded of the sea lions of the gladigot silence and how they make a lot of this, a lot of similar noises and can often sound very human in this regard. All right, we have more goat related listener mail here. This one gets a little more into I guess demonology angelology. Um. This one comes to

us from Michael from Tasmania, Australia. Michael writes in and says, just listening to the pod and I'm sure there will be plenty of feedback on Joe's pronunciation of Azazel the Fallen Angel, but couldn't help myself. And then this is rather interesting and I imagine Joe would want me to read this. Um So Michael points out Azazel actually pronounced Osazel, not Azazel, is the name of the demon in the Denzel Washington, John Goodman and Torres from Star Trek Voyager.

Don't know the actor's name off the top of my head. Sorry, movie Fallen, which is a great supernatural thriller if you guys haven't seen it, not sure if it has aged well, but I recall thoroughly enjoying it at the time. I love your guys work. Been a listener for about eight years now and the Bicameral Mind episodes are still my

absolute favorite. Michael. Yeah, thanks for the note here. I mean, I know in Webster's both pronunciations are provided, but yeah, it sounds like maybe one is maybe more authentic to the original usage. As for the movie Fallen from look at that, it's uh, this one would I guess in some ways be eligible for weird House the way we've been doing it. But yeah, it's been a long time

since I have seen this one. I did see it at one point, and it has it had a pretty great cast looking at it now, I mean, because of course had Denzel Washington, John Goodman, but also Donald Sutherland, James Gandalfini, who else, Robert Joy Who's played a lot of creepy characters over the years. So um. But that being said, I don't have very strong memories about this one. I kind of remember it just being on at the time. Maybe I rented it, but yeah, it's been a very

long time. Um. Now, it does stem from a period where I think we did have multiple weirder Denzel Washington pictures. I know that Joe and I have frequently discussed, uh, at least offhand, how weird and fun Virtue City from was. That was the one where, if memory serves, Denzel Washington was a cop and Russell Crowe played like a blue

blooded clone. That is also kind of a patchwork creation based on all the serial killers of history or something like that, kind of a kind of a strange plot that I remember it being vaguely fun and kind of an action mid nineties manner. So at any rate, uh, maybe I'll have to go back and look at some of these films in more detail and indeed see how

they hold up or don't hold up. Alright, This next one comes to us from Adam Adam Writeson and says, high folks, I loved your first episode on goats and demons. I heard you mentioned that you would reference the Hebrew Bible and the next one, and I figured you would touch on the goat sent to as a zel or a zazel, so I wanted to give some deeper context

on that subject. Firstly, the act of transferring the sins of Israel too into the goat and sending it off is still within Jewish practice today, but it is somewhat different. Around Yam Kapoor, the day of Atonement, there is a practice called cappara in which a chicken is usually waved over someone's head, and many Jews will do this in a humane way that doesn't hurt the chicken, transferring one

sins into that chicken. Then, though we don't wish for the chicken to suffer pain, that chicken is still slaughtered. But Jewish slaughtering practices require a quick and painless death. Thus your sins are removed for those who wish not to harm an animal at all. Some will wave money over an individual's head, transferring one sins into the money, and then the money is spent wiping you clean of sin. Oh, now this is very fascinating. This kind of makes me.

This reminds me of some other practices and kind of makes me want to do a magical money episode in the future. Anyway, Adam continues separately. I wanted to mention that Biblical scholars are not clear whether the goat in the Torah that is sent to as Azel or Azazel is sent to an entity or a place. It's not definitely known whether as Zel Azazel was a demon or whatnot. Originally, However,

if you look at the name Ozazel Azazel, they're important features. Firstly, the L at the end of the name is not like the L that's e L in the English found at the end of other Theophoric names denoting the name of God or another deity. This L is not L with a case, so it's he's pointing out it. It's a lower case, not upper case. It's not capitalized the spelling of the Hebrew letters for is azel or azazel is and then and then he writes a n zayn

alif zay in Lahmed. Most interestingly is that this name seem ms to be a combination of the word for goat as a and z n and the Aramaic word for walk go uh azel a lefsayan lamed um. So that so at the very least, the goat is sent on a quote unquote goat walk or azazel. So thanks for all you do, Adam. So this was very fascinating to hear. I love these these breakdowns of the origins of some of these words, and again how words and

symbols change over time. But the idea of this, uh, this name that often gets reinterpreted as kind of a spooky demon name, uh, you know, to to sort of fall back on this sort of duality of fronts and pronunciation, like like Azazel sounds very regal and terrifying, and you can imagine some sort of demonic being. But to think of uh sending a demon out on an asazel a goat walk to nowhere, that's that's a little bit funny, kind of go back to the money python thing. Once

you cast the demon into the goat. You've not only maybe robbed it of its powers, but you've also made it a little comical. You've put it in a vessel that is inherently funny. All right, And now we're gonna get into a couple of non goat listener mails. This first one, UM, I think it's too in response to an older episode. This may have been a listener mail, UM,

but this is from listener Charlie. Charlie writes and and says, Hello, I'm very behind on the pod, but I just listened to an email you read of mine and wanted to clear out the confusion you had on boys. This is not b O Y S but b O I s now Memory serves this was a situation where someone had written in using this terminology and we were a little less familiar with it and maybe had a question or two. So anyway, Charlie is here with some answers. Charlie writes,

I hail from the tumbler corner of the Internet. Do recommend for those of weak constitution. You've been warned, and it is generally accepted there that boy with an eye is gender non specific or neutral, or at least it was around. Now the trend seems to be gendered term

g N g N standing for gender neutral. For example, you might call someone a quote unquote skeletor girl g N to note their appreciation for the bewilderingly buff skeleton man from he man within a fan community, who you quote unquote girl for typically ascribes personality traits based on that character. It is not the same as being coded as that character. You could absolutely be both quote unquote skeletor coded and a quote unquote skeletor girl and this

would have nothing to do with your gender presentation. Sorry for the skeletor tangent. Didn't see that one coming. Thanks Charlie, No, thank you Charlie for a little illumination here on the terminology, and of course any discussions of skeletor are always welcome. All right, we have one more here. This is a listener male in response to a recent episode of Weird House Cinema. In fact, it's response to one of the guest co host episodes that we've been running, uh daring

Joe's parental leave. This one comes to us from Dan. Dan writes and and says, dear Robert and David Um just listen to your episode on The Gate, and I thought David Streepy did a great job. I look forward to him coming back on Weird House Cinema in the future to discuss something else. The first time I ever saw The Gate was back in middle school when I was roughly the same age as Glenn and Terry. On

Saturday Afternoon television in the late nineties. The scene where the demon versions of Glenn and Now's parents come back come home and Dad picks up Glenn and says you've been bad is one of those scenes that has lingered in the back of my mind ever since, as has the many scenes involving the Gromlins at hacking the kids. Funnily enough, I had always thought that it was the playing of the heavy metal record backwards that actually summons

the demons. This, I think was also my first exposure to the myth about if you play heavy metal records backwards you can hear quote unquote hidden satanic messages. Quick note about Terry's bedroom wall. The black and white pin drawn poster you see amongst the Iron Maiden and Judas Priests posters is the cover of a compilation album by the psychobilly band the Cramps. Also, you can briefly see the cover of another Cramps compilation album on his drum set.

This is the one that is lime green with a smiling zombie like creature. So Terry's got great taste in music. Congratulations and best wishes to Joe. I'm sure he can't wait until the day he can show his daughter Attack of the Crab Monsters without her getting nightmares. Best wishes and happy Halloween. Dan. Yeah, okay, so just still see the sponsor to some of this. So first of all, thanks for the the insight into Terry's bedroom and all

the bands he was into. Uh, this makes me appreciate the design effort that went into creating that set even more um and and again, just a terrific film the Gate. I really enjoyed it. And moving on to some of the other issues. Yeah, it was great to have Dave Street beyond the show. Uh. Dave's been a friend of

mine for many years. He's he and his wife frequently watch episodes of the nineties Outer Limits with uh with my wife and me, so we we have that and we used to watch MST three k's together all the time. So our appreciation for weird movies goes way back, and yeah, so I just if you do enjoy what what Dave had to share and Dave's take on things again, check out the Talk and Tofu podcast that he does with

his wife Becky, And yeah. As as for Joe, I I too look forward to the day when he can show his daughter Attack of the Crab Monsters um and in general, I think it is going to be neat to see where things go with the show over the next few years, because I know when I became a parent, I mean, it changes some of the things you're into. It makes you rethink and old pieces of media that

you used to enjoy. It makes you rediscover things from your childhood and then re examine them through the child's interests. And then you find yourself also curious about things that were never part of your childhood but are part of theirs. So suddenly you're learning about Pokemon, You're finding out what a lick a tongue is, and so forth. So it'll

be interesting to see what happens. I wonder if Weird House Cinema will I don't think it would become completely child centric, obviously, but I look forward to seeing what sort of films Joe brings to the table as as his daughter, maybe reignites some of his appreciation for these childhood films and maybe we were already seeing a little of that, uh in the run up to the birth. All right, well that's all I have to read here today,

but certainly keep them coming in. Um, I think the way timelines coming together, there'll be maybe one more listener Mail without Joe, And so if the mail bag is full enough at that point, maybe I'll do another one of these. Maybe not, maybe we'll skip it and do something else and then have a nice fat bag of listener mail to look at when Joe comes back to

the show. But at any rate, Yeah, let me just remind everyone that Listener Mail normally runs on Mondays and the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed and you can find it feed wherever you get your podcasts. Um, we do core episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind on Tuesdays and Thursdays, on Wednesday's Short Form Artifact or Monster Fact episode, and on Fridays, That's weird. How cinema time time to set aside most serious concerns and just talk about a weird film. Let's see what else at

the outset. I mentioned the discord and the Facebook group. I mentioned the letterboxed to count. Um oh, there is still merch. I often forget to highlight the merch, but yes, we have a te public store for Stuff to Blow your Mind. There's also some Weird House Cinema merch in there as well, if you need a quicker way to get to that. If you got to Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com, that'll shoot you over to the

I Heart listening for this show. And there is a tab there for the merg store for our store, so you can check all that stuff out. I mean, it's all that stuff is is just for fun. But if you would like any kind of merchandise with either the Stuff to Blow your Mind logo, the Weird House Cinema logo, or just some other fun designs we've come up over the years, including that the rub the fur t shirt and so forth, well that is where you'll find them.

Thanks as always to Seth Nicholas Johnson for producing Stuff to Blow Your Mind, and he'll be joining me on some more episodes as well during Joe's Parenthal leave. And finally, if you want to reach out to us via email, well here's how you do it, you can email us at contact at stuff to blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.