Listener Mail: Planta Haereticus

Rob If you don't mind, I'm going to get started with this message from Carlos, which I think is in response to our series on called The Beast War and Apron about like animal cuisine and about a listener mail segment that was responding to that. Carlos says, Hi, Robin, Joe, I was listening to your most recent listener mail episode today on my way to school, and the first letter, which was about sneaking away raw slices of potato to eat, caused an old memory to come bubbling to the surface.

I was raised in an evangelical church, and summer camp was a large part of my life. When I think about it now, one of the strangest things about these camps was how many of the games revolved around embarrassing slash unpleasant experiences. The one that I suddenly remembered today, which I had apparently tried to forget, was a game in which several kids, myself included, had a race to eat a raw white potato as fast as possible. I remember it being very unpleasant, perhaps one of the more

terrible food experiences of my life. When I have kids, I don't think they will be attending these camps. Ha ha. Thanks for everything, I hope all as well. Carlos. What kind of game is this? I must know more? What was it just a race to eat a raw potato? Or was there like context? Was it illustrating a Bible story or something? Yeah, I don't know, and it sounds sounds from the email. I'm I'm assuming this means it was like a an official part of the camp. It

wasn't just like us. Some kids got bored and they got ahold of some potatoes. But you know, like a count counselor was like today, children, we shall see who can eat these potatoes. This is sanctioned by adults. Um. They bring, in fact, they bring the authority of the Lord, you God Almighty to say you must eat this raw potato. Yeah, and I don't know. I'm trying to imagine what kind of like Bible camp connection that could have would it be.

I don't well, there are no mentions of potatoes in the Bible, obviously, you know that's a new World food. So like maybe something about the verse about if salt loses its safer I'm coming up blank, I don't know. I mean, obviously it was it was refer in the old days. I mean today you send a kid to like vacation Bible school or something, and they have so many I mean they've really thought it out. They have all these different art projects and you know, science projects

even um, so it's really impressive. But I guess back in the day you didn't have that. What you had were raw potatoes, and you you just killed time as you get as best you could. Well, anyway, thanks for getting in touch, Carlo Us. All right, Well, since we're talking about vegetables, our next one concerns are episodes on The Vegetable Lamb of Tartari, though this will only concern part one because this email came in before part two was published. Taylor writes in and says, hello, Rob and Joe,

I just finished part one of The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary. Robert, your son may have missed this one, but there is in fact a vegetable lamb Pokemon. Its name is skid Do, and while it is not attached to the earth by a strange umbilicus, it can photosynthesize using the leaves growing like fur on its back. It grows or evolves into the Pokemon go Goat, whose horns are said to change in texture to reflect its emotions. This is the second time I've written in to weigh in on Pokemon, and

I'm happy to be the show's Pokemon correspondent. However, Rob, if your son is anywhere near is enthusiastic about Pocket Monster is as I was and am, you may share my father's fatigue for the subject. Thanks for all your wonderful explorations of the strange beasts of fact and fiction. I've attached to illustrations of skidd Oh and go got for your viewing pleasure. All the best, Taylor. Okay, so we got the two pictures. I guess this is the

what they would call the evolution. I don't know much about Pokemon, but the first one is like cute, and then the second one, well, the first one's cute and it appears to be hopping about and kicking its back legs and has a bushy vegetation on its coat, and its horns are in kind of a y shape or like that that old school uh, the flipping out middle part hair comb what I don't know what you call that hair do Anyway, the older one has like red angry eyes instead of the cute eyes, and then it's

horns are just going straight back. Yeah. Yeah, this one, I guess just has two forms. A lot of them have three, but not all, and some of them don't have but the one form. But typically what you'll see is the the basic form. The first form will be super cute, and the final form will be fierce, and then the middle form. Uh well, sometimes it's cute, I mean because Pikachu, whoever everyone knows, is technically like like the second form. It's like the mid form between Pichu

and right you. Uh. But but in some cases that middle form it is also just a little like it's not completely cute, but it's also not fearsome yet it's just kind of awkward. Wait, so there's a baby Pikachu. Oh god, yes, it's it's named Pichu, and it's an imagine Pikachu even cuter. Um, that is my son's favorite Pokemon. Uh and I get to hear about him all the time. Oh boy, but yeah, this is a solid point about

go Goat and uh skid. Oh here. Um, I was not familiar with him, but I woke my son up this morning saying, hey, we got I got an email from a listener about Pokemon. He came in and looked at it. He's like, oh, yeah, yeah, I know these two. So you woke him as if like there was an emerge agency son, son out of bed. Nothing wakes him up like Pokemon stuff. He can be a little a little slow to wake otherwise. Uh so yeah, this looks

this looks great. Um. It also reminded me so the final form here is Go go There's a ghost track titled Kiss the Go Goat, which is supposed to be tongue in cheek satan stuff like most of the ghost tracks. But now I shall only associated with this particular Pokemon. Now I would have to imagine this is directly inspired by the by the vegetable lamb of Tartari. Right, it would be a strange coincidence if it were not. Yeah,

it seems very likely. Um, and it was wrong of me to question the Pokemon masters by saying, why isn't there one, because clearly they're on it. Though to return to biblical themes, of course, there there are famously distinctions between sheep and goats. So yeah, alright, I'm gonna read this next message. This is in response to our episodes

on the three pupil die. This is from Chris, and Chris begins by saying, in your podcast you discussed polychoria and pseudo polychoria, and to briefly refresh, these are rare conditions which cause the appearance of multiple pupils or openings in the iris, and the far more common of these two is the false version pseudo polychoria, where there is at least one additional hole in the iris, but it's not considered a true second pupil because it doesn't have

its own sphincter muscle surrounding it, so it can't adjust its aperture like the primary pupil can, whereas true polychoria is when the second pupil has its own sphincter muscle and it can, so you shine a light in that both of the pupils will contract anyway. Chris goes on to say, I was born with oculo cutaneous Albanism, and a sub diagnosis of my condition is the pseudo or false polychoria. My iris has insufficient pigment to cause some parts of the red to shine through the iris. I

think means resulting in pink eyes. Also, under nondirect light, dots or holes in the eye where the pigment is missing cause the polychoria, like a stained glass window with small holes in the paint. The effects are hypersensitivity to light. I have to wear sunglasses more than most and get headaches from being outside. Also another side effect is since the light is not filtered in parts of the iris, I can detect shades of colors that are not normal.

Super chromatic is uh is I think what they call it. Think of the color blindness tests, but with three colors instead of two, where people with normal vision only see the two. Anyway, love your podcast format, hyper referenced and detailed analysis, Chris, Well, thank you, Chris. Yeah, this is interesting. I'm especially interested by the idea of you talking about your increased sensitivity to the color spectrum. I've heard before of the idea that there are more color is to

see than than we see. They're they're various types of I think it's called tetra tetra chromacy and other animals, but I was not familiar with the idea in humans. I'm gonna have to look into that, the the idea of expanded color range sensitivity. So thank you, Chris. All Right, Well, we also heard from another Chris on more on the same episode in response to the same episodes. This Chris writes in and says, greetings, Rob, Joe and Seth just

finished the second episode of The Three Pupiled Eye. A great pair of episodes that certainly brought up some fun topics and had me thinking about eyes and pupils in a new way. Near the end of the episode, you discussed some interesting pupils and eye configurations in the natural world, and this brought to mind interesting examples of eyes and the fantasy world. One pair of eyes that I can never forget are those of the Pale Man, one of

the Monsters, and Giermo del Toro's film Pans Labyrinth. While the actual eyes and pupils may not be that extraordinary, it's their placement that is unique. His body resembles a pale old man, visible nostrils and mouth similar to those of a manta ray. He ultimately eats children, but also fairies. His eyes can be placed in the sockets in his

hands rather than the face. UH this site and he's talking about a fandom WICKI about this creature also makes note that the Pale Man was also influenced by the real life Japanese legendary monster to No May the ghost of a blind man whose eyes are located in the palms of his hands, which I thought was interesting as well. Maybe an episode on mythical or monster eyes is in order.

Thanks again for the great episode, Chris. The idea of eyes in the hands brings to mind another recent episode we will actually be referenced it earlier, the animal cuisine thing where we talked about the washing behaviors and raccoons. Someone's raccoons will wash their food before eating it, and there have been multiple explanations for this hypothesized. One of them is that the raccoon UH has one of its primary sensory interfaces with the world is actually as sense

of touch. It has extremely sensitive hands, it's four paws of tons and tons of nerve endings leading up to the brain and um and that it's so so in a way, for raccoon, touching things is almost as important as our ability to look at things is, like that's a primary sense for them. And so perhaps the reason for this washing behavior is that feeling around on a food item in the water helps increase the sensitivity of the four paws in in getting you know, textural information

about the food. That strikes me as a as a possibility and and very interesting one. It's like having eyes in your hands. Now. Certainly this this monster in Hans Labyrinth, yeah, is very memorable. But they the yokai that that that Chris mentions here that Tenome is also very interesting as well. I was reading about him with my son just this past October. So what's the scoop on the Tenome? It's just just hands and like what does he do with

the the eye hands? Oh, trying to remember offhand. Um, like a lot of their number of the yokai you know that don't actually kill you or hurt you. They're just there to kind of scare you. Um. So I don't recall off the top of my head what the Tenom is up to other than particularly you know, possibly scaring you. But I don't know. Maybe we'll have to have to look into this. Um it was, it's it's a pretty pretty fun one. Is I recall there's some

other yokai with interesting ocular positioning as well? Oh yeah, like what there's one with an eye in the butt? Uh yeah, yeah, there's a there's a section one. I think that the book that I was reading with my son, Yokai Attack, the Japanese Monster Survival Guide, which which is excellent for all ages because it has wonderful sort of anime style illustrations but also well cited, well written information

about all the yokai. Uh it included um information on both of these yokai, plus a ton of other ones. Oh nice, Well, I'm gonna have to look that one up in my own reference. The one I always turned to that I've got on my show Fear is the Book of Yokai by Michael Foster Michael Dylan Foster. Yeah, well, you know we should come back and do some okai content the future. Then maybe maybe that will be some good, good Halloween material this year. Oh yeah, we've done it before.

I'm sure we will do it again. Were plenty of them, all right, I think we're gonna turn to some weird house Cinema responses. This first one is from James. James says, good afternoon, gentlemen. I was excited to see you featured The Abominable Doctor fives on a recent Weird House Cinema episode. While I've never seen it, it's one of the many b horror movies I've known about for a long time

due to a Misfit song of the same name. Oh yeah, James, I know what you're talking about, James says, listening to your podcast was the perfect motivation to finally buy a used copy on eBay to experience the movie myself, and boy, oh boy, what a treat. I haven't seen such a hilariously tongue in cheek horror movie since Cabin in the Woods, and I now understand why the related Misfits song is one of their rare instrumental tracks as the namesake Doctor

cannot speak. The episodes preamble also sent me down and amusing Vincent Price advertisement rabbit Hole. The sun Country Wine Cooler polar Bear ad is weirdly cute. That's what it was. Sun Country Wine Coolers that they got the good one with vincive price and uh and with Grace Jones and I'm sure some other stars. They probably did some other celebs of the day. They could get James goes on.

But the Monster Vitamin's commercial should come with a disclaimer that you may never see Mr Price the same way again. Apparently he keeps children locked up in his basement um and then he says, at least they're getting proper vitamin nutrition plus iron down there. And what James is referring to I looked this up in the Monster Vitamin's ad. So Price is giving you the pitch. He's like, you know, here they are. They're delicious, they're chewable, they're good for you.

But then he opens a trapdoor in the floor and like shake some vitamins down to the children who are apparently kept there. Well, those are just the children under the stairs, nothing going on there. It is amazing what used to make it into commercials now Man commercials now are too safe. They're not gonna risk making you associate the product with like the capture of children in dungeon.

You know, it does all the thinking about all these Vincent Price commercials, it does make me think that technically we could bring all these back. Like I don't know if the Vincent Vincent Price of State and his family members will be down for it. But the technology to recreate deceased actors using computer technology is better now than it's it's ever been. Like. Oh no, no, I hate it.

Have you seen some of the recent examples, because I know you're still thinking of Tarkan, but the latest like reproductions of say Luke Skywalker, Young Luke Skywalker are really good. So I think we're at the point now where we could bring Vincent Price back and have him be a spokesperson for all new um short lived alcoholic beverages. Oh man, I so want to yes and you, but I just hate it too much. I hate yes, I hate it all right, fair enough anyway anyway. James goes on to say,

thanks for the recommendation. Please feel free to peruse the Misfits catalog of songs for future episodes of Weird House Cinema. I thank you, James, I will feel free. Uh. He also goes on to say to talk about a different episode. He says, during a recent Listener Mail episode, you discussed

the safety of eating raw potatoes. I think specifically we said we did not know whether there were safety concerns or not, and Unfortunately, I still have not really looked deeply into that, so so I don't take medical advice from the following. But James says, I believe the fear stems from the possible presence of a toxin called soul nine, which can cause symptoms akin to food poisoning and an

extreme case as death. However, soulenine concentration is only significant in a potato's eyes, sprout stems, and leaves, so be sure to avoid those. This is of course not true for carrots, radishes, beats, etcetera, whose greens are extremely nutritious and can be tasty both raw and cooked. I myself, I'm a fan of eating many vegetables raw, especially asparagus, and am now curious to sneak a chunk of non green potato the next time I'm preparing them. While I

do prefer them roasted. I'll typically sneak a few raw brussels sprout chunks myself while cooking them. I'll just be sure to avoid them served in the style of fibes I e. Goo and ensure no locusts are nearby. My gecks crickets probably couldn't devour my face, but I'll air on the side of caution. As always, many thanks for bringing background entertainment to my work day several days a week.

Love your podcast. Cheers James. Well, thank you, James. But to come back to your idea about the Misfits songs about old B movies. I one time, when I was in college, I was seeing a friend of mine UH and his band perform, and I'm not sure what genre you call him, and it's not bluegrass. They were like a sort of traditional style UH instrumental band mostly that would play with like a banjo and a fiddle and and and would play sort of an old, old mountain

tunes I think. But I went up to talk to them in the middle of the show and I asked my friend. I was like, well, it's a great show, but where the Danzig covers? And he launched into a profoundly beautiful, uh sort of mountain blue grass cover of Astro Zombies by the Misfits, and it was pretty good. Yeah. I know. When I was like in junior high I was into into the Danzing, but I didn't know much

about the Misfits. It was only much later that I got to explore such wonderful lyrics as return of the Fly, Return of the Fly with Vincent Price. Yeah, the Return of the Fly don't get any better than that. It's beautiful. It's like poetry. By the way, James here when he shared the playlist or the list of films that inspired Misfits songs, he shared that to us on letterbox that's L E T T E R B O x D dot com. I don't know. I don't know how widespread, uh this this website is. I don't know if it's

new or it's been around for a few years. But a listener wrote in I think on our discord and was like, hey, you should you should set one of these up for weird House Cinema. So I have set one up for weird House Cinema. If you go to letterboxed, you can just search for weird House. Our user name is weird House and right now it's just a bare bones account, but it has a full list of all

the movies we've covered on weird House. And uh, yeah, if there's enough interest in the site, if this is something that is of interest to folks, we could always spring for an h Q account and do more with it. But in the meantime, uh, there sure is a list of movies there, and it's a great way to sort of instantly visualize what we've covered thus far. All right, speaking of the discord, one more bit of listener mail here.

This one comes to us from from Matt sharing the following about the Devil Rides Out quote with regards to your discussion of the Duke's religious affiliation at the end of the episode. The story makes me think a bit of the Eisenhorn trilogy by Dan Abnett. Hardline puritanical inquisitor gradually starts using the tools of the arch enemy because Hey, if I'm the one summoning demons, it's fine because I'm

responsible and I'm using them to fight other demons. It would have been great if there was a sequel to The Devil Rides Out where the Duke had gone full radical and was being hunted by other puritanical sorts. I love this. I love this idea. Yeah, yeah, I think Matt makes a great point here. Uh So, first of all, the Eisenhorn books by Dan Abnet are a lot of fun. I've I've read, uh I think I've read four of them,

the four key Eisenhorn books. He knows Mallius Hereticus and the meges Uh, though the character pops up in some other books that he wrote as well. I particularly like Zenos from two thousand one, but the Magoes from is also a lot of fun. These are books about an imperial inquisitor in the Warhammer forty thousand universe, tests with

hunting down heretics and stopping their evil deeds. Now, these stories don't take place on the epic grim dark battlegrounds of the forty K universe, but they instead tend to revolve around backwater planets and and sometimes the just the everyday lives of people that are living in the shadows of these these you know, these big altercations. So I could be wrong, but I don't think you need to have a lot of forty K lore stashed in your head to enjoy these books. And Abnet is also just

a solid writer as well. But indeed, one of the recurring themes in the Eisenhorn books is that every inquisitor will either die in service to the cause or they'll live long enough to become a heretic themselves. Um because of course, the inquisitors inherently have great knowledge of the occult threats they face but then they increasingly use occult powers to combat those forces, and eventually they just lose

their way. So at first you're combating dark forces with your own dark forces that you're harnessing, but eventually you're just lost and you're another slave to darkness. And so I think this is this is pretty insightful and absence part because it matches up with, first of all, what you see with with witch hunters of old, as well as with many modern crusaders against various perceived cultural threats.

Because in times of old, witchcraft persecutions became an excuse for cruelty and horror, as well as the satisfaction of one's own interests in the sorts of ideas and practices that one outwardly opposed. And how many moral crusaders from our own times come to possess just exhaustive information about the things they crusade against. They know all the terms, all the slang, all the alleged perversions and paraphernalia. But they're safe. They're the ones in the video of warning

you against the powers of Satan. They're the they're the duke fighting the devil in the night. So they're okay. They can have this knowledge, right, I can listen to the heavy metal albums because I'm doing it from a place of judgment and moral authority. I just need to understand what they're what they're doing. You know what satanic messages they're preaching, and so forth and so forth. I can you know, the Duke, I can read these occult tomes.

You shouldn't you. I'd rather see you dead than reading these occult tomes that I've been staying up all night with. Yes, the Church has authorized me to listen to Sabbath day and night front words and backwards so that I can keep a watch and look out for the children. So anyway, thanks for writing in, Matt and I For anyone out there who wants to be a part of the Stuff to Blow your Mind discord, just email us and I'll

send you the link. That seems to be the best way to go about this, because the links expire and I don't think there's a way for you to otherwise join the group. But I just shoot us an email. We'll have the email here shared for you, and just a moment in the meantime, if you would like to check out other episodes of well, Stuff to Blow Your Mind Core episodes on two season Thursdays, or episodes of

Weird House Cinema which air on Fridays. It's all in the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed, which you can find wherever you get your podcasts. Just look it up, subscribe to it, and if you're allowed to leave a nice review, you know, throw a bunch of stars our away and say say something nice. Um that that that that helps the almighty algorithm. We assume all right, one assumes I mean the ways that the algorithm are mysterious. Yeah, and we just have to trust in in what we've

been told. Yeah. Okay, so 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 topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for My Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.