Listener Mail: Our Blessed Saint Poochie

just for fun. So that was nice. What what miniatures did you paint? Let's see? I did? Oh? I did uh three cpo and R two D two three cpo? Is that like? I'm sorry? R two and cpo? What is it? What's you go with to Jordan's names? Yeah? I love uh yeah, no, I painted those guys up. I got those for Christmas as a gift, along with their little pot that they land in. Oh that's wonderful. Well are you ready to jump right into these messages? Let's do it. What do we got? What is the

mail bot Carney you have for us today? It looks like this first one is about our episode on holiday Inventions. I think these were mostly inventions related to Christmas trees. This comes from Brett. Brett says, Hello, gentlemen, I was recently listening to your Holiday Inventions episode when you were discussing a particular antique tree ornament. It was one that bubbled when it got warm from a light. I think it was Joe who mentioned that it was filled with

methylene chloride. This got my attention. As an organic chemist, we use methylene chloride or dichloro methane d c M daily. D c M is an ideal solvent for many organic compounds. It's volatility and hence low boiling point and ability to dissolve many organic compounds make readily make it ideal for our line of work. To help convince ourselves that we were able to synthesize a desired compound, we used instruments such as nuclear magnetic resonance or n MR to help

determine a structure's identity. D c M easily is removed under reduced pressure under vacuum, therefore reducing the probability of contaminating and maybe maybe overlapping with the desired peak. D c M feels very cool when it touches your glove quickly penetrating it and entering through the skin, providing a tingling sensation that we try not to let this happen. One thing I find amazing of a solvent such as d c M is its weight. Having two chlorine atoms

attached to a carbon center. You can feel the weight difference compared to something like isopropanol per volume, and an even heavier solvent that is closely related is chloroform basically d c M with an extra chlorine, and you can really feel the effect of the extra chlorine. Uh, the effect of one atom difference. It always fascinates me where a conversation will go during your episodes Organic synthesis during Holiday Inventions episode why Not. That is the power of

words and thought. Thank you as always for providing such thought provoking content. Happy holidays, Brett, Well, thanks for getting in touch Brett. The power of words and thought. I have never thought to uh to summarize our ideology that way. Maybe that's what it is. We just follow the words and the thought. But yeah, I appreciate hearing from Brett. Here. This this listener knows their chemistry. This, this was a delightful email. All right, here's another one. This one comes

to us from Kate and it goes as follows. Dear Robert and Joe, I just finished listening to your episode on heavy water, and I was really excited to hear you mention the kinetic isotope effect. I am a research scientist and our lab uses D two oh frequently um in our study of enzyme mechanics. One of the truly amazing aspects of the enzyme chemistry is the coupling of the movements of electrons and protons hydrogen adam without their electrons.

The coupling has the effect of lowering the activation energy of key steps, helping reactions occur faster and more efficiently. By observing enzyme turnover in H two O and D two oh, this kind of coupling can be identified. This work is highly relevant both to biochemical research and to the design of new catalysts. Right now, chemists are working on engineering this kind of step into synthetic catalysts, and

understanding how enzymes work helps guide their work. Our lab also uses aqua regia as we do work with nanoparticles as well, and acquareggia is the only thing that will clean our glassware. So this episode hit, a hit a double when it comes to my lab experience. Thanks for all the fun and informative episodes. You guys keep me company when I am doing the routine upkeep of laboratory life. All the best, kate ps. You guys should think about

doing an episode on gold nanoparticles. They have really interesting modern applications as well as a fascinating historical aspect. The red color in some stained class was prepared from a mix of gold salts and tannic acid, which it turns out is a way to make nano clusters of gold that I used in my graduate work. Interesting listeners. Bringing the chemistry today, bringing the gold as Yeah, I would. I can't remember if we've done it as a designated

episode on gold before. It seems like we should have. Maybe we did and I forgot it, but either way, we should do it. I mean, the show has been going a long time, but uh yeah, I often wonder when I wanted to do a new episode, I'm like, oh, was this done like eight years ago or something that would be hard to figure out. It doesn't even matter if it was done eight years ago. You know, it's like there's gonna be enough new stuff to cover. That's

always my approach. It's like, if we did it before, it's probably worth doing again because either there's new science, there are new wrinkles, there's stuff that we didn't find before. Uh, you know, it's it's it's similar to the whole situation. Remember early on, when these podcasts were just starting out under the house Stuff Works banner, everyone was sort of hyper alert to, oh, should we cover this subject because stuff you should know just did this subject, or history

did just did this subject. And it took a while for everyone to realize, of course, we're gonna cover subjects that other people have covered. Sometimes we're gonna hit the lotto and they're gonna publish in the same week without anybody knowing about them. But everybody's gonna bring their own men to the to the information. You know, they're gonna find different areas to focus on and have different um,

different side thoughts on what they're discussing. Yeah, I know that's happened to us before, where we published an episode on something the same week that Josh and Chuck did, and then people ask us, did you do this on purpose? Why would we do that on purpose? Now we just we just don't know what the other shows are doing. We don't like share calendars or anything, but we should win something when we line up like that. Okay, this

next message is about fingernails. It comes from Brent. Brent says, Hi, Robert and Joe. First of all, I love the podcast and listen to it instantly while working on art projects, doing chores, playing video games, are just driving around. I find every topic fascinating and love to learn new things from you guys every day. You're both a delight to

listen to. Thank you brand if I remember correctly. In one of the Fingernail episodes, Robert mentioned the idea of a superhero who uses their fingernails as a way of measuring how much they have used their powers. Well, I don't have an example of a hero. I do have an example of a villain. And uh, brannan, I want to say, correct me if I'm wrong. I think this was not in original Fingernail episodes, but it was in. It was response to another listener mail that brought up

a story from Uh. I believe it was from Maori legend about a god or a figure who uses their fingernails to to keep a fire going. Yes, yeah, and I just said, well, that would be a great sort of visual um thing to work with in a a in a modern superhero tale. Yeah yeah, so BRN goes on and says, warning, your nail trauma ahead. But it's

just like one paragraph. I was recently reading a Japanese manga called Chainsaw Man, and in one of the story arcs, a villain appears who has made a pact with a demon for every time she wants to use the power of the demon, she must sacrifice one fingernail. I thought it was very interesting to have the limitations of a power be the amount of fingernails you have and the amount of time it would take for them to grow back.

This character isn't a very prominent one, but the moment I saw her, I thought of your show anyway, thank you for all you do, Brent. Interesting. I gotta look up Chainsaw Man. I'm hooked by the title alone. I like that. I'm assuming it's like Chainsaw Man has like

some chainsaw attributes. But the vision of it that I would I would hope for one that I kind of I would idly think about in the past was like, what have you had a person or an entity that was made entirely out of chainsaws, but not not the like engine of the chainsaw, but just like the intangible nous of the chainsaw, you know, like there's something to it chainsaw that is beyond like any specific part of it.

It is just like the roaring gears of the thing. Yeah. Well, in like a gnostic sense the same way, how like God can have different emanations of qualities that are themselves creators of planes of existence, the chainsaw can produce divine emanations. So there's like a quality of chainsaw nests that is its own deity. And I gotta say, I just looked up chainsaw Man, and what I like about chainsaw Man, having never seen him before, is he doesn't just have

chainsaws for hands. He also has a chainsaw for a head. That's a good touch. Oh, I'm looking at it now as well. And yes, this is solid. I approved this message. If it had just been hands, I don't know if I would have been with it. But the head, the head thing seals the deal. Yeah. All right, here's another one for us. This one comes to us from Raphael and it has to do with our episodes on Spinning. Dear Robert and Joe, thank you for your amazing podcast

every week. I look for to your unique discussions connecting science, culture, and history. As a professional scientists, maintaining my sense of wondering curiosity about the world is very important in my career, and you help stretch the boundaries of my imagination far outside my area of expertise. After listening for several years, I am finally taking the plunge on writing in after Robert's call for comments on the utility of spinning in

combat situations. My wife and I have participated in combat sports or practice martial arts for most of our lives. Though having trained with truly dedicated professional instructors and Olympic medalists, we cannot think of ourselves as anything more than enthusiastic amateurs. What perspective I cannot offer you in depth I can

offer you in breadth of experience. I ask your question about spinning in combat on our weekly Zoom call with two of our close friends who are also experienced martial artists. Between the four of us, we have seventy plus years of experience across a diverse set of martial arts and combat sports. Initial reactions to the idea of spinning strikes

and combat were mixed too incredulous. After some discussion, our general consensus was that spinning does have combat utility, but not in the ways presented in many films and video games. Before I get much further, I will point out something that may seem obvious when evaluating anything in martial arts or self defense. The effectiveness of any particular technique is always dependent on the specific context in which it is used.

Particularly in martial arts and sports that includes competitive sparring. UH, the rules and restrictions in place for safety and that define the scoring system will heavily influence the combat style and what is considered to be effective. This is certainly the case in competition taekwondo, which seems like one of

the modern martial arts that employs the most spinning strikes. Thankfully, even modern m m A includes rules that prohibit many of the most effective and damaging attacks that would in reality be the best survival options in a lethal self defense situation. Modern combat sports also generally prohibit the best self defense techniques of all running away as fast as possible.

That would be interesting if that was always an option, you know, right, if that was like a strategy you could deploy in the ring yeah, Oh he's trying to He's trying the runaway. I don't know how that works. But back to the outcome of our conversation, we all agree that that full spinning strikes used at longer fighting distances the kind of moves you mentioned on the show

are a pretty bad idea. In most one on one combat, spinning punches and kicks can generate significant power, but require you to sacrifice balance, stable footing, and present your back. If initiated at standard kicking and punching ranges, they are easily anticipated and therefore countered. Spinning kicks in particular, also

require a high level of skill, athleticism, and flexibility. A martial artist can achieve the same level of striking power with none of the drawbacks using half turns instead of full rotations. Many attacks that appear to be spins are actually multiple half turned strikes in sequence. There are situations, such as the one represented in the video of Joaquin Buckley's competition knockout kick, where a spinning move can help you escape a bad situation or attack from an unexpected angle.

Someone with sufficient skill might use spinning strikes effectively in the right circumstances, but such instances seem like exceptions that prove the rule, and they go onto to share some more details that we don't have time to get into here, but basically getting into say spotting techniques that are a part of everyday training exercises, just how you how you utilize a spin, But they continue quote everyone also agreed

spins are very useful in multiple attack or situations. When facing multiple opponents, it is all about maintaining mobility and preventing yourself from being overwhelmed. Spins are a useful way to dodge, reorient in a new direction, and quickly spot other opponents or escape opportunities. If you want to see this in action, just watch a basketball, American football, or rugby game. Spins are frequently employed to break past opponents

or dodge tackles. The utility of spinning to deal with multiple attackers applies to armed as well as on armed combat. Some of the katana and short staff exercises I know include spinning footwork based on the assumption that you have to quickly reient to deal with armed attackers from multiple directions. The closest thing to a Tasmanian Devil style spin is a stationary three sixty degree spin combined with a horizontal sword slash performed at the very end of some sword kata.

My understanding is that this is not meant as any sort of directed attack. Rather, you are checking every direction for new opponents after you think you have defeated your initial attackers. The sword slash is meant to give any new attack or a reason to pause and maybe by yourself, a potentially life saving moment. In the end, we concluded that the obvious athleticism and easily visualized nature of spinning punches and kicks is the reason that we see so

many of them in movies and video games. Just like the reverse grip use on long blades and punching armored opponents with unprediccted fists, spinning strikes are dramatic and fun to watch, but probably best left on the screen anyway. I hope this email provides a useful perspective. Our group certainly had fun discussing the topic. Thanks for all your

great episodes, Raphael. Wow that was some depth, Rafael. Yeah, that was great And like I said, we didn't even have time to read all of that one but on the show here. But yeah, I greatly appreciate folks chiming in with their expertise, in this case dealing with spinning in combat. All right, this next message comes to us

from Pearl, also about spinning. Pearl says, Hi, Robert and Joe, in your episodes about spinning, you mentioned spinning in ballet and separately, the feeling of being entranced as a spectator of spinning persons, especially the Sufi dervishes. I wanted to bring up a famous piece of ballet spinning lore that will bridge these two ideas, where the trance state induced

by watching someone spin actually moves the story forward. It's also explored in Aronofsky's Black Swan, but since the whole film is one long, bad trip, this particular bit of psychedelic spinning gets lost in the mix. In the classical ballet Swan Lake, a crucial moment in the story comes at the end of the second act, when the deceptive

black Swan o'deal secures the devotion of Prince Siegfried. She accomplishes this by executing a series of consecutive whirling movements on point over the course of thirty two counts of feverish music, known as the Black Swan coda at the

rate of at least one spin per count. In modern productions, this almost always comes in the form of thirty two fuette turns French for whip, a type of pirouet in which one leg is extended out to the side and pulled back into the body, quickly creating the force necessary to whip the body around on its axis. This movement is done without ever placing the working leg, the one doing the whipping motion, back down on the ground, enabling the dancer to execute many more turns than would otherwise

be possible within the same amount of music. The Prince and the audience is so entranced by the spinning that all doubts about o'deal are dispelled, and he commits his heart to her, now actually believing that she and the white Swan odette are one and the same. After all, how many enchanted mutant swan women could there possibly be

within one forest. The same idea has been used in other ballets, and super quick, super athletic pirouetts are standard practice for today's dancers, but watching the Black Swan coda is still a mind altering experience, even for seasoned patrons of the art form. I tried and failed to keep this letter short. Ballet is a world full of weird, morbid fairy tales and bizarre physical feats that need a

lot of explaining. My personal connection is that I've been dancing ballet as a hobby since age three, including several years on point. That's almost three decades, and I'm still fascinated. Love the show Pearl and then Pearl attaches a video that we can watch. Very cool. Yeah, in this video, the turns got us on and on. It's unbelievable. All right, here's another one for us. This is perfect because it also deals with Russian storytelling. This one concerns the Leshy.

Dear Robert and Joe, I hope you're enjoying the holiday season. I'm a tremendous fan of your show. The first episode I ever listened to was about Jupiter's Moons a few years back. I was hooked after that. I so enjoyed the episode about the leshy. It inspired my husband and I to watch the folk tale season of The Storyteller so great I waited until closer to Christmas to check out the Russian movie you mentioned. Frosty a k a. Jack frost a k a Morozko. This movie is a trip.

I wasn't sure what to make of it at first, but the more it sinks in, the more I realized. I love this movie. It is so colorful and imaginative. The characters, songs, costumes, and effects are also great. I definitely recommend the original Russian movie with English subtitles. Dubbing just won't do, as you won't get to hear the tiny soft voice of Nastia or um Ivanusca's hey Ulus. I'm not sure I'm saying that right. Uluiyu song. The Bobby Yaga kills it with her costume and crazy faces

and laughs. Father Frost costume is out of this world. The step Sister and Uh and the Quarter are also hilarious. I think some may not understand this movie, but if you think of it as a Wizard of Oz or Alison Wonderland from another culture, it makes sense. I think this is one of my new Winter classics. Also, I often think of the the Lesti story about the guy who brought the Lessie to a wedding as a guest, so ridiculous. I cracked myself up just thinking about it. Yeah,

that was a good one. That was It's just I love the the weirdness of so many of those tales. And and again, uh, if anyone's interested to go back, I mentioned the author who has compiled so many of these stories, and that book was tremendous. Anyway, continue, Um, thank you so much for the wonderful podcast. It has ignited so many fun adventures and explorations for me. Also, you'll have the best podcast voices just saying happy holidays,

Leslie in Seattle, illegal flattery. Well, I'm glad you enjoyed Jack Frost, because again, it is a beautiful movie. Most, I feel like, well maybe not most, but a lot of people in the US are probably only familiar with it from Mystery Sense Theater three thousand. But it is in and of itself just a beautifully made film with a lot of wonderful stuff in it. So um, yeah, I highly recommend folks check it out during the winter months.

I agree. Yeah, Um, it is both funny but also uh, you know, if if you put yourself in the right mindset and experience it as a as a as a fresh fallen snow, you know, like it's sort of like a new babe in the world. It's it's quite wonderful, not a princess, a queen and Leslie thank you, yeah, far too kind. I thought maybe we should wrap up here with a question that may be relevant, because I can't imagine we will stop using this point of comparison

as we go on. So Taylor, writing in about Weird How Cinema, Taylor says, hey, Rob and Joe Taylor from Salt Lake here with a simple question, could you define pucci for me? This time has come up several times in recent episodes, referencing both Sonic the Hedgehog and the obnoxious teenage son from Ghost in the Machine. I don't know if it's a generational gap or a cultural moment

I missed. I'm twenty five, but I've never heard this word, and I now have burning curiosity to be looped in since I don't know how it's spelled in this context. Urban Dictionary has been less than helpful. So maybe you can help a brother out with a little flaming barrel etymology. As always, thanks for doing what you do and filling the duller moments of my days with weird, thoughtful, edifying ear candy. I'm really enjoying Weird How Cinema and the

recent diversity of content the best tailor. Yeah, I figured this is probably worth explaining for other listeners who are not as deeply rooted in Simpson's lore as we are, because I I think sometimes I just like, you know, like Shakespeare could assume that everybody in his audience knew the Bible, so they all had the same point of comparison. I tend to assume everybody knows the Simpsons, but I know that's not true. So this is from the Simpsons. Pucci.

I think Pucci is kind of one of the patron saints of our era and history. Pucci is a soulless media corporation's attempt to lure in young viewers with a cringe inducing simulacrum of youth rebellion and subculture. Would you say that's a fair definition? Yes, yeah, I think that that sums it up nicely. So, but well, sorry, what I was just gonna say, he's the he's the product of pure corporate group think in terms of trying to inject strategy and to creative endeavor. Yeah, so he's more

than one thing at once. I want to give you the full spectrum of Pucci. If you've never seen the episode So in the Simpsons, the context is that the children can always be found watching the Itchy and Scratchy show. It is a classic of sadistic cartoon violence between a mouse and a cat. So you know, Barton Lisa on Saturday morning will watch Itchy throw Scratchy into a volcano and they laugh and all is right with the world.

But in the Pucci episode, the corporation that owns Itchy and Scratchy decides that the show needs a new character to boost ratings. So over the objections of the show's writers, who are they are themselves portrayed as like pompous and lazy um, but these meddling executives come in and mandate that the show must now incorporate a new dog character who is just you know, a sort of a very uncool business person's idea of subcultures, but all different subcultures

thrown into a blender. So he's a leather jacket wearing electric guitar, playing grunge hip hops for in sunglasses and a backwards cap. Oh. Also, somehow Homer ends up being the voice of Pucci within the show. I think that they have like a big casting thing and he gets it. For some reason. But then when the episode with Pucci debuts and the kids watch it, Pucci is rightly despised by all UH and is promptly written off the show.

There's this great scene where they UH like somebody dubs in a line that says like I must go, my planet needs me, and then they just lift the cell out of the animation frame and then we get like a subtitle saying that Pucci died on the way back to his home planet. I think we had never been told before that it was from another planet. Um, let's see, that's what Pucci is put Pucci is actually several different

emblems at once. In one aspect, Pucci is a corporate executives horribly confused and inauthentic understanding of what the kids are into these days. And so Pucci is in that respect a very poor and cringe inducing attempt to pander. But I would say Pucci also represents the never ending desire of business executives who own creative properties to interfere in the creative processes of their employees with the near

guarantee of disastrous effects. So in that later sense, I think to broaden the scope beyond just cartoons and media products. I'd say that every time your boss tells you to try doing X, and you already know that it's a terrible idea because you know what you do day in and day out, but your boss doesn't know. But you have to do it anyway because your boss said so. And then sure enough X proves to be a failure and a terrible idea. X is a Pucci. That's a

Pucci situation. That that that's absolutely yet I think you've summarized Pucci um that the episode, if anybody wants to see it, it is specifically the fourteenth episode of season eight, and it's titled The Itchy and Scratchy and Pucci Show. I'd say I think about Pucci at least once a day. I mean, Pucci is like Pucci, as much of a figure as like an eleventh century Frenchman might think of

the mother Mary. You know, I maybe don't think about him as much, but if I get enough work emails covering the right topics in the course of the day, I certainly think about Pucci and start thinking back and to it, and I can't remember. I think I think I watched it with the family. I think I showed it to the boy recently um. In Pucci's debut episode, he introduces himself with a Pucci rap, and then he

tells the children to always recycle. Yes, always recycled to the extreme busted and he's like playing in a guitar and dribbling a basketball. I think all at the same time, m hm, should that? Should that wrap it up for today? I think so. I mean, if you want to, if you want to learn more about Pucci, you have your homework. You know which episode is episode to go watch, and he's only in that episode. I like that they've stuck

to their guns. I believe. I'm pretty sure that I'm Seth will interrupt us here and let us know if we're wrong. But I think they've stuck to their guns and never brought Pucci back, which is the way it should be. He truly died on the way back to his home planet. But also this should be a good prompt for listener mail. I mean, in the in the broader understanding of Pucci. What's your Pucci? What's the Pucci

in your life? Yeah, I mean, sometimes it's hard to find a pure Pucci like Pucci exists because we need like the purity of the idea to take on a corporeal form. Uh So it I feel like it's actually a little difficult to find wild Pucci's out there. You know, you can find just aspects of Pucci and other things generally. But I'm I'm open to correction on this if you have some examples of of Pucci, pure Pucci or Puccinus or just slight Pucciness in the world. Let me know.

I think when we made the Sonic the Hedgehog comparison, it was not in this broader understanding of the way Pucci fits into, i know, dynamics of creative projects and things that are owned by corporations. In that sense, Sonic the Hedgehog is more of a Pucci in that he's just like a cartoon animal who's got an attitude, uh and was mandated that he should have an attitude by

some business owner. Right right, Yeah, So even Sonic is not a pure example, but even the kid in um uh in Ghost in the Machine is not is maybe not pure Pucci, but he's as close to pure Pucci as I've ever seen. Uh in cinema uncut Pucci deep dupe, doude deep but deep dup. But we just got a notification from Seth, who is even more of a Simpsons nerd than we are, that Pucci has in fact returned on multiple occasions in the Simpsons, but always only as

like a punchline cameo. Okay, well that's not that's good to know, yeah, not as like, hey, here's another whole Pucci episode. All right. Well, it looks like Carney the mail body is shutting down for this episode, but we will revive him next week and we will share more listener mail with anyone who's willing to listen to them. And if you want to uh yeah right into us, let let us know, respond to stuff we talked about in this episode, respond to current and past episodes of

Stuff to Blow Your Mind or Weird how Cinema. We We would love to hear from you. In the meantime, if you want to listen to other episodes in the Stuff to Blow Your Mind, feed just as a rate review, and subscribe wherever you have the power to do so. Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer and Simpson's expert, Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this show or any other with the suggestion for a topic for

the future, or just to say hi. 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 my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app. Apple podcasts are ever you listen to your favorite shows.