Listener Mail: Here There Be Dragons

episode about stolen heads and stolen brains. It's gonna be a lot of fun. All right, Well, let's let's kick right in to uh to full gear on this listener mail episode. Here comes the robot, Here comes the listener mail. Okay, should I do this one from? I can do this one from Alexandra if you want to go for it, Okay.

Alexandra writes in about the Shannhaijing, says, Hi, guys, I was listening to the episode about the Shanhaijing, and I wanted to say I really empathized with the childhood I believe dragons existed feeling you mentioned and wanted to share why. I come from Krakow, Poland, which used to be Poland's capital for many centuries, and our local mythical slash folklore

symbol is a dragon. We have a beautiful castle Vovl, located on Jurassic limestone on the bank of the Visa or the Vistula River, and there is a legend saying a dragon used to live in a cave below the castle. The basic version of the legend I always heard goes like this, no night could slay the beast. When a local cobbler, Draftevka, showed up, he said he had a trick in mind. He got a sheep carcass and filled

it with sulfur. The dragon, tricked by Drafteva's work, ate the sheep and suddenly felt very, very thirsty because of the sulfur. He started drinking from the Viswa river and drank and drank and drank until he finally burst, and thus Drutevka became a hero. Tadah, Yeah, good legend. I think it operates on the assumption that a dragon is much like a dog. Like it does not stop to

taste its food. It just wolve, sit down. The goal is to get it down the gullet as fast as possible so it wouldn't be thrown off by the scent of sulfur. It's just going to swallow that sheep. Alexander goes on, But it's just a legend. Why would I believe it? Well, there's an actual limestone cave under the castle now a tourist attraction, and it's called Dragon's Den, which I believe in Polish is a smokee Sha Yama, Alexander says. There's even a really cool metal dragon sculpture

that breathes fire next to the entrance. Now that sounds like some burning man stuff. Uh. There is also an ancient bone hanging on the cathedral located on the Vavel Hill, said to be the Dragon's bone, So how could that be just false? All the proof is there. Why would somebody just lie about dragon? Uh? And then there is a little tongue sticking out emoticon. Thanks for reminding me of that feeling, and thanks for the amazing podcast. Love

listening to you. Stay safe and healthy, Alexandra. Well, I looked at the photograph of the bone hanging there and uh, yeah it looks legit. Yeah, what is that? Actually? It looks like a large kind of tongue shape. Maybe it's a rib bone. Yeah, I mean well, one's mind instantly goes to like whales, um something something of that nature for sure. M yeah, I wonder what that is. All right, here's another one for us. This one comes to us from Erica. Erica writes high There. I was recently introduced

to your podcast and I'm loving it. Thank you for reminding me what interesting conversation like sounds like in the midst of a pandemic. I'm sure you get lots of mail, so I forgive me while I learned out a bit and share a few thoughts that were sparked by the few episodes I've listened to so far. I'll keep it as brief as possible. While I was listening to Monsters of the shan Haiji, you talked about how the Italian words for Dante's demons sound more interesting to English speakers

than the translations. Um like malacota sounds better than evil tale. I think this is why many people find watching films in their original language with subtitles so much better than a dub bad lip reading. Aside, by using subtitles, you're able to retain the original sounds of the dialogue while understanding the meaning in your native language. I was a latecomer to anime because growing up I'd never seen it in the original Japanese, and I generally loathed the sound

of the American voice actors chosen to dub those shows. Now, though, I really enjoy watching Japanese anime and listening to the cadence of the language, which for me is up there with Italian in terms of phonetic beauty. One thing that struck me when I started watching anime was that when characters perform magic, they would often use English or German for spell casting. I'm really fascinated by this. What does magic sound like to people in different parts of the world.

For English speakers, I think it's pretty fair to say that Latin is the fual magic language. In addition to the hocus pocus that evolved from listening to religious services in Latin for many centuries, Latin is a language known only to the elite learned. It has the lyricism of Italian, and it's something from the distant past when wizards, dragons, ETCETERA.

Quote used to exist. As you mentioned, you believed as a kid in the Monsters episode, But what is it that makes mouth sounds sound magical to people from other parts of the world. Then I got to thinking about how Token invented Elvish to sound beautiful, and contrasting with that, uh, and contrasting that with Klingon, which is meant to sound warlike. And I just had to email you to unload these thoughts on someone and hope that you know about some

kind of study that's been done on this. Unrelated to that. I'm listening to your podcast Brain and Head Theft Part one while I was between chapters on Worms by this w y R M s by Orson Scott Card. Uh. There's so much in that book that links up with what you were talking about in that episode that it was actually a little creepy. You made it this far through the email. Thanks for reading. I'm excited that there are so many more of your podcasts I have yet

to hear. B Well, Erica, Oh thanks Erica. Well, yeah, a lot of interesting ideas here. I don't know if i'd ever put that together before about in the English speaking world, Latin being a very common convention for for the language of magic, and yeah, I think that would probably have a lot to do with Latin being the scholarly lingua franca of medieval Europe and and Renaissance Europe. So at the time when alchemists would have been writing,

you know, they're there occult tomes. I think probably a lot of these tombs would have been written in Latin because it was the language of elite learning and scholarship, even though nobody actually liked spoke it. Yeah, yeah, I mean you see some other languages thrown in the mix, like especially post Exorcist, you see Aramaic thrown around a lot. Anytime you have a demon they're probably gonna be then they may be speaking in Aramaic. Uh if you can, you know, wing it um, But you know other I

guess other ancient languages can work as well. But it does make me wonder. You know, we touched in recent weird hol cinema on um Chinese black magic films, and I wonder what languages, uh like Chinese films turned to, or what languages Japanese films turned to, especially if they're historic and scope you know, UM be interested to find out. Of course, thinking back to our episode on the the

Oily Maniac, I guess in that movie. I don't recall exactly how the magic worked in that movie, but that was a movie about the the magic of outsiders of other cultures. So it makes perfect sense that you would potentially use um a language like a non Chinese language in that scenario. So I wonder if there's a lot

of that stuff going on. But on the subject of cling on, uh, we we'll have to come back to that because I I've long been interested in doing an invention style episode on invented language, oh straight up created languages, the reasons for them, uh, you know, entertainment or otherwise, and what some of the best examples are. So that's that's still on the list of possible episodes to do in the future. It's interesting that I think one of the last episodes that we did of the dedicated Inventioned

podcast before we moved into this feed is um. It was that we did invented words. But of course inventing a word is very different than trying to invent an entire language with its own rules and lexicon and grammar and everything. And I wonder if could it be possible that an invented language would ever really catch on or is that pretty much just not ever going to happen. Yeah, all right, are you ready for this next message about stolen heads and stolen brains? Let's have it. This is

from Sophie. Sophie says, dear stuff to blow your mind. Obligatory but true sentence about being longtime listener, first time caller. Uh in your head slash brain to parter. This week, the name Jeremy Bentham rang recognition bells in my mind. Hey, isn't that? But I wasn't certain until you mentioned him still being at University College London today. Upon reflection, this would imply there being multiple men who decided they ought to have their bodies preserved to hang around in perpetuity.

But honestly, humans do far stranger things all the time. My first encounter with Jeremy Bentham was as a complete surprise during our orientation tour several years back. I was doing a semester abroad at u C l s Art School. Our first day was the whole group before we scattered to the many programs, So the tour guide made sure to lead the pile of unsuspecting American college students to the literal dead founder to tell us all about him and U C. L our culture, being one of shunning

contact with death meeting, Mr Bentham was somewhat arresting. Despite his genial demeanor in the pictures you see online. I can assure you he's rather more unsettling in per and especially when he's been sprung on you. The tour guide went on to explain that a requirement for accessing the endowment under his name is that he be in attendance

at all requisite meetings. Thus we got to contemplate the tableau of quiet, serious board meeting attendees patiently waiting as a very dead Jeremy Bentham in his glass case gets wheeled in ideally with amusingly squeaky wheel sound effects or something that at least amused me. I don't believe they explained that his head was elsewhere and why, and was unsure if you encountered this reason for his preservation or evidence for it in your research. They are not mutually

exclusive pieces of lore necessarily. Although I do remember being told about the wax face, I genuinely don't remember if they clarified that it was all wax, as what I gleaned was wax over his skull and an increasing urge to make for the exit, never to return. As an aside, I would presume I have a relatively strong reaction and that most visitors are far less unnerved. I imagine as a regular student, I would either avoid his hallway whenever possible,

or become desensitized. As it sounds most are, given that they've taken to stealing bits of him. I know, I know being uh, I know being there for only six months, I was somewhat inured, but barely. I have very strong hyper empathy, a terrifically active imagination, and probably am a hyper visualizer. I have autism, contributing to my high empathy and my difficulty in turning it off, and my family slash friends, and I suspect I also have mirror synesthesia

added on for obvious reasons. It's easy to generate strong visceral imagery and difficult to put it to one side. My brain is rather a live wire, and I can be tickled on the face from across the room. Much to my dismay, my plan to respectfully never go near dear Jeremy again was foiled by his placement at a critical intersection of hallways. The only way to the school's supply store was a set of lovely stairs directly by him.

I cannot recall there being an alternate route while I was there, and would always brace myself for the trip, desperately attempting not to make eye contact with his surreal piercing gaze as I speed walked by him. With about the success we all have when trying not to think about the purple polar bear, I e. None. I suppose I was lucky that their art supply selection was largely insufficient for my mediums of choice, and I was tragically

forced to seek art stores off campus. Conveniently enough, they contain no dead people. According to a recent article by the school, he's been relocated to a student center since I attended, which hopefully is a nicer location for all involved. He's an important icon they no doubt wish to keep accessible to visitors in the u c L community, but also need to maintain proper collections, protocols, slash environment, and apparently significant security. So I imagine finding the ideal balance

is difficult. Maybe the new site will prevent more head theft if the meat jerky head is kept with the body now, or maybe his head will be like the gavel goat statue of U c L Time will tell no doubt. I'm not sure what the gavel goat is. It sounds fun. Thank you so much for your time and also your research. I appreciate a good citation so you can add me to the unofficial petition of your fans. Hoping your new home will return to us a mother

ship website with that good good robost tagging and source linking. Sincerely, Sophie, Well Sophie, I, I really appreciate that final note. I don't know how much hope you should hold out for that. I believe the gavel goat, by the way, is a traditional Christmas display erected uh in Gavel, Sweden. Some some some some very swift online research seem to provide that answer, but who knows. There could be multiple gavel goats out there.

Oh that's a good look and goat. It's got big old horns that make it look like a basket with a big handle. Yeah all right, here's another bit of listener mailison comes to us from Michelle. Oh and just to clarify something, this next message mentions in the subject line that it is about Haydn and the head theft of Franz Joseph Hayden that we talked about in part one of braindon Head Theft, Hi, Robert and Joe. I loved your episode on head and Brain Theft. It made

me reminisce about my favorite teacher. I played violin in elementary school, but wasn't great at it and didn't love it. On my first day of middle school, the orchestra teacher asked for two people to switch to to to base, so I jumped at the chance without telling my parents beforehand. Luckily, they felt bad bass playing was vastly better than bad violin playing, and we're okay with it. The teacher loved to tell us stories about the composers we were playing.

He told us about the Surprise Symphony being written because his benefactor kept falling asleep during concerts, and about the Farewell Symphony, which involves musicians leaving the stage as the last movement progresses until it's only two violinists because the orchestra had been stuck there longer than they expect did, and Hyden wanted to give his benefactor the message that they wanted to go home. But now that I've learned about Hyden's head theft, I think my teacher left out

the best story of all. I can't think of a better story to get middle schoolers into classical music than something as gory as decapitation and missing heads. I'm still playing the bass in local community orchestras back when we could still have those, and I'll never look at a hide and piece the same way again. He's always been one of my favorites, and I'll enjoy them all the more now once we are all allowed to play in

groups again. Also in response to Robert's comments about cats and food names, my cat growing up was called pancake because my parents got her when she ran under our car and they almost smashed her flat as a pancake. Thanks again, you guys have been keeping me going through these weird times. Thanks Michelle, rob How does pancake stack

up in your in your cat food names? I think pancake is a perfect name for a cat, because Smith there was a there was an ignoble prize winning paper, wasn't there about how cats are neither solid nor look quid there Um, let's say you forget the details of that. But but as they their shape is in flux, sometimes they are flat like a pancake. Yes, that ignoble paper was about the rayology of cats. Reology being the field of physics that studies how how fluids and liquids flow.

Uh so, and and cats, I mean, I think one would be hard pressed to argue that they do not flow. Let the Let the cats flow. Okay. This next message comes from Zolt. Zolt said, Oh, and it's about our episodes on sinkholes. Results says, Hi, Robert and Joe, I'm writing regarding your recent episodes on sinkholes. You mentioned that various sources of waters, such as wells or rivers, often serve as sacred or spiritual sites for locals. I thought

i'd mentioned an example. Sacred or holy wells are quite common in Hungary. One can often come across them while while hiking in the countryside. These natural wells supposedly possess healing power, with stories of magical recoveries from various illnesses and disabilities, with the healing power often attributed to patron saints. The sacred nature of these wells is often discovered or confirmed by the appearance of a saint or very often

the Virgin Mary in the vicinity. There are more wild stories too, such as a healing well being created by a lightning strike. Interestingly, I noticed that these wells are often nearby other religious sites, such as small chapels or calvary hills. Maybe people attributed certain religious significance to areas, or it was just easier to make a pilgrimage to the same general place to fulfill all their religious needs

instead of going all over the forest one stop shop. Uh. Calvary hills, otherwise known as crosswalks if you're not familiar, are also pretty interesting. UH. They are usually a hill with at least thirteen stations of crosses along a path that people hike up on around Easter time as a form of pilgrimage. Each cross along the path represents one stage that Christ goes through during his crucifixion, with three

crosses on the top of the hill. Usually, these hills are barely a few hundred meters above sea level, but they still tie back to the idea of sacred mountains as well. Anyway, thanks for all your good work, zolt PS. I'm loving the Weird House Cinema episodes. I found a few movies that I enjoyed quite a lot that I didn't even know existed before. Well, if you find a few movies that you enjoy quite a lot in that mix, that you you're doing pretty pretty well. I mean, I

don't think to think we we love all of them. Well, maybe the spirit of Weird House Cinema is that we're exploring movies that are always fun to talk about whether or not they're fun to watch. True, Yeah, and finding finding the things to love even in films that are sometimes very uneven. I would say that's that's also a court of the spirit of the thing. All right. This one comes to us from Toronto. Hi, Robert and Joe. I'm a big fan of the show and have been

for ages. I have to say I am joined the new format of the show with more content and variety. Okay, maybe except Weird Al Cinema. I think I'm not ready for that yet. I was listening to your episode on Bonds Eyes, and when you mentioned the story of the stolen Bonds Eyes and the plea for them to be returned, I thought that I had heard that before. Furthermore, I

thought I remembered a happy ending to it. Sure Enough, a quick search of in my podcast library brought me to an episode from Stuff You Missed in History Class six. By the way, not sure if I found them through you or vice versa, but also a great podcast. I'll quote from from there, and this is the thirty two minute scond mark. The museum put out a call on social media for the returning, promising that they would not ask any questions. They were just afraid that these irreplaceable

trees would die without proper care. Three days after the theft, that trees reappeared in the museum's driveway and uh. Then they also included a link to a Smithsonian mag dot com article to stolen Bonsai trees mysteriously returned Washington Museum. Um. Anyway, they continue, I thought I would give you the good news best regards train no ps the explanation of one of you regarding why cutting onions from pole to pole to cry less was pure stuff to blow your mind.

Can't wait to test it? Is it gonna be your first time cutting an onion that way? Me or the listener? No to the listener to uh, to train o or to toronto. I apologize that I don't know how to pronounce your name t r A n O. Uh. Well that's funny. I I hope you enjoyed the poll to poll cutting I mean pulled a pole. Cutting of onions

is something I recommend in all kinds of scenarios. I mean they're there are different reasons that you cut onions in different directions, but one of the main ones that I would say is that if you want the onions to kind of fall apart over cooking, cut them cross wise into the ring shapes, because and you're you're sharing more of the cells and they're just going to fall apart more, especially if you're like braising them or cooking

them in liquid. If you want them to retain their shape, more cut and pull to pull, because then you're cutting along with the direction of the long cells, you're sharing less of them. There's just gonna be less falling apart as the cooking goes on. All right, tip tips we can all use right there. Sorry, this is this has been onion news. You can use. But anyway, regarding the subject of your message, I really do appreciate hearing that

the bonsai trees were returned. That's that's that's heartwarming. Alright, looks like we have some more bonds eye listener mail. Yeah, this one comes from Matt. I think Matt has written to the show several times before about agricultural scientific topics and Matts emails are always good. Matt says, Good day, Fellas love the episode on bonsai trees, particularly since you

delved briefly into several biotechnology topics. I just wanted to add a couple of bits to the conversation as you described the green revolution and the dwarf ization of major crops was indeed a tremendous agricultural leap. You were also right on the topic of lodging. Remember this is the issue where lodging is where crops end up falling over like the stalk bends near the ground, and this causes a lot of crop loss in farms around the world.

And so one of the advantages of dwarf crops like wheat, for example, is that by not getting as tall, they're less likely to fall over and bend at the bottom of the stalk and and waste or make harder to harvest the weight at the top of the stalk. Anyway, going on, Matt says, lodging is still a major issue for farmers in many crops and can be caused by both extra weight on cropheads due to excess moisture as well as blowdown from wind. It hurts yields quality and

certainly makes for harvest trouble. If I could recommend a cool example to illustrate some height differences, you might want to check out some indigenous land race maze varieties. Sierra mix a comes to mind. We bread away from these varieties over the eons, but researchers are now actually looking to incorporate some of the genetics from these varieties back into modern high production hybrids. In the case of Sierra mix a, the traits allowing it to fix nitrogen from

the air are of particular interest. Plus, Sierra mix a can make for some pretty weird pictures see attached. Rob I did include the picture down here for us to look at. I guess that is supposed to be a maze plant, but though it looks like, I don't know, it looks like using red goblin fingers with yellow nails. Yeah, it's very um it's very alien looking. Yeah, Matt goes on. You might have said this already. Apologies if you did,

but it's worth remembering. Dwarf varieties also produce more food per plant, less energy spent growing up, more spent growing out. It's producing more with less, which continues to be a major factor in bettering food security. I know I've pestered you guys with agriculture related subjects several times in the past, so thank you once again for begging my indulgence here. Keep getting that science out there. We all need it. Matt, Well,

thank you, Matt. Yeah, this is interesting. I think we did talk about how the dwarf crops also do tend to have a higher yield or a higher percentage of I can't remember exactly what the term is. That's something like the the harvest index or something. It's like the percentage of the above ground way to the plant that's the harvest able part of it. All. Right, here, we have one more listener mail. This one comes to us from z Z rights In and says, Hey, Joe and Robert,

I hope you're both well. I've been listening to your show for years and years, and suffice to say, I'm really glad the show is still going strong. It happened that I put the Bondsai episode on as I was starting a walk through the Tory Pine State Natural Reserve

at the northern end of Coastal San Diego. It's one of my favorite places in the world, and it's full of what i'd call natural bondsai inform, if not always in size, the kinds of unique shapes you find in swamps like the cypress you mentioned, or as crumb holes formations near mountain Arctic tree lines, or in this case, on wind swept coasts. It's really too dry in this area for trees to grow naturally other than down by

rivers and creeks. The one exception is the tory pine, which only grows wild on the headlands on either side of a particular estuary, where the valley topography channels the summer fog so that the trees get just enough moisture to survive the rainless summer and fall. Supposedly, these trees are a relic of a formerly more widespread pine forest throughout coastal southern California. I sa age relics might be

a cool topic on its own. In any case, I think these lovely contorted trees are a great example of the kinds of environmental constraints that lead to bonsiesque growth, growing as they do on the windy slopes of eroding sandstone cliffs without much in the way of soiler rain.

The infos of the conditions you guys talked about is also underscored by the ornamental tory pines planted all throughout this area, which instead grow quickly into tall, rounded canopies when they're liberally watered, and the same effect is visible just on the two sides of the ridge here, with small bent over bonds eye on slopes facing the sea, taller open canopies in the canyon bottoms and on the ridge, and much fuller, rounder trees on the sheltered leeward slopes.

The California coast actually has a bunch of endemic conifers, mostly pines and cypresses, that only grow in really restricted, often disjoint, uh distributions near the ocean, and many of

them grow in these strange bonds I shapes. I'm a big fan of the idea of bioregionalism, and I find these strange, rare trees to be a really lovely symbol of the particularity of this stretch of coast, which helps me feel like I'm more connected with the placiness of the land, especially in southern California, where there are hundreds of kinds of ornamental plants from all around the world just in one suburb. In any case, I'm looking forward to what you do next and am holy in support

of more plant tree themed episodes. Sincerely, Z Rob. I've attached some of the photographs that Z sent us to look at. These are mostly what they were referring to as like Bonsai trees, but growing wild, not not necessarily in size, but in shape. And these are a lot of really beautiful trees. I like them. Yeah, the trees finding their way in a um in a unique landscape sometimes you know, with some some some some some definite

restraints in place. I think in in the Bonsai episode, we did make the comparison to poetry, right, the idea that in some cases, UH poets often feel that creativity is driven by the constraints imposed by a certain rhyme or meter scheme. Because you can't just say anything. It leads you to say things that you wouldn't have said otherwise, you know, because you've got to fit it into the

meter or something. And UH, I think that that looks true of many trees, even if they're not having constraints imposed by humans, but maybe having constraints imposed by the harshness or weird conditions of the natural environment where they're growing. They kind of form a poem because of how hard their life is. All right, well, that is it for this particular listener mail mail bag. But there's stuff we

didn't get to this week. There's stuff that will come in between now and next week, and we will read even more listener mail, So feel free to to chime in. You have responses to old episodes, new episodes, uh, you know, ideas about what future episodes could consist of. Everything's on the table. You've got corrections, let us know. You've got responses to other people's listener mail. Uh, let us have it. Do you want to correct other listener mails? Do so

you want to correct corrections? Yeah? Well whatever you like this is this is kind of your show at this point, so uh yeah, let us know. In the meantime, you want to check out other episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind or the Friday episodes of Weird House Cinema. You know where to find it. Go to the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts. 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 production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.