Listener Mail: The Rhythm is Below Me

Mind dot com. You can write in for any reason, if you've got feedback on a recent episode, if you want to share something interesting, if you just want to say hello, any of that's fair game. Email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Let's see here, Rob, would you like to kick us off with this message about the Monster Fact? Sure? This one comes to us from Tim. Tim says, Hi, Stuff to

Blow your Mind team. I love the podcast, and I'm particularly excited for the Monster Fact episodes featuring Warhammer forty thousand or Warhammer forty k I've never been into the games, but the lore of that realm is creepy cool and fascinatingly weird, so I can't wait to hear more. And then Tim goes on and says, when you make multi part episodes. I'm always especially keen to listen to them

because you guys get really deep into the topic. I've often heard about the concepts before, so a shorter, shallow we're handling would just be rehashing. I let them stack before listening to them all though, So if the name could include part X of Y or part X slash, why that would help my arrangement of listening time so I can fully engage with the topic rather than being left unsatisfied having jumped into a two parter only to find out that there's a third part teasing my brain

with incompleteness if possible, practical Please and thank you. Keep up the great work you make my monotonous hours at a lab bench at work far more interesting. Regards Kim, Thank you Tim. I'd say if we could do that with the episode numbering, we it, but we don't always know how many parts we're gonna do when we start a series, so sometimes we'll think that it's gonna be two parts, but then you know we're recording part two.

We realized we've got a lot more stuff that we've turned up and we'd like to get into, so it ends up going to three. Uh So, yeah, but by the time we published the first part, we don't always know how deep we're gonna go. I guess I could go in and add part X of Y to a description, if not the title, then certainly the description after the fact,

like once we've completed a particular journey. Um, I hadn't really thought to do that before, but I don't think there's any practical reason why I couldn't do that, and certainly why we couldn't do that when we re air those episodes the following year. So yeah, there might there might be some things we can do, but yeah, most of the time, we just we do not know that's gonna be. Sometimes we think it's gonna be one episode

and then it becomes three. Hey. Though, on the other hand, to bring up something that we mentioned in last week's listener mail, UH, tim you you know, you listen to the show at your own pace. You listen whenever you want to. That's all up to you. But we have been told by people here at the company that there are some cases where UH listeners may be affected by

waiting to catch up on episodes. That like some platforms such as Apple Podcast may stop downloading episodes of our show into your feed, even if you're subscribed, if you haven't consumed the most recent x number of episodes, it might be like five episodes or something, And so this apparently sometimes affects numbers if people are waiting to catch up or letting episodes stack up before they binge them. Obviously, if that's the way you want to listen, that's fine.

But if you do want to help the show out and make sure that nothing like that happens to you, and uh, you know you're you're always getting new shows of ours in your feed. It is apparently helpful for you to be current on the show. So if you want to help us out and help yourself out to make sure you're always getting new stuff, that's the thing you can do. Absolutely And uh and Tim, thanks for

the kind words on the Monster Fact episodes. Uh yeah, I'm gonna keep I did a three partner on the Tyra Aids of Warhammer and uh yeah, I heard some nice things from some folks, so I might return to the Warhammer World for future Monster episodes after skipping around back into mythology and folklore and so forth. All right, what's that I hear, Joe? It sounds like sleigh bells.

Oh yeah, we got a straggler from the holidays that this always happens when it's like February and we're still getting episodes related to uh, just sort of a Christmas time or whatever, which you know, we're always getting feedback about stuff that came out a couple of months ago,

but it's just especially funny when it's Christmas themed. Well, this time it has to do with eggnog, and in a way it's fitting because, as we discussed in the Eggnog episode, egg based alcoholic beverages used to be consumed just year round. That's right, yet to protect you from the fog drafts while you're walking to work in the morning or setting out a long journey from an inn in Maryland. So anyway, this is from Bianca. Bianca says, Hi, guys,

I'm a bit behind my podcast listening. I just listen to your eggnog episode and was quite surprised when you mentioned that eggnog is considered a drink for everybody in the US. I live in Austria, and I would say that here it is mostly thought of as an alcoholic drink. I've never encountered a non alcoholic version in the stores. Although I'm sure it exists, I thought it interesting considering you mentioned that in the early days of eggnog, it

was also thought of as an alcoholic drink first and foremost. Yeah, the the earliest references to eggnoga seemed to be exclusively references to a hard, boozy drink, not not something that's uh sold in cartons and given to children. Bianca says, Although I am no expert, I would guess it has at least partially to do with the German name for eggnog, which is ier liquor. I think that means egg liquor. Uh.

The liquor part literally translates to liquor in English. The alcohol is therefore already in the name, but I suppose that's not the whole story. Also, people seem to have an ambivalent opinion about eggnog. I do not drink out the hall of myself, but I recall many people telling me they do not like it, and people seem to buy it in heaps when it's Christmas time, so there must be something to it. I guess. Keep doing what you're doing. Really enjoy listening to your show. Greetings from Austria.

Bianca well, um, I know, as a as a grown up, when you have a glass of eggnog that is also spiked. Um. It is often my experience that I will have this beverage and I will find it lovely, but afterwards there's almost a sense of shame for having consumed it because you realize, oh wow, that was that was rich, that was a lot, and I probably shouldn't have another glass of that this year. It's just a nice, boozy mug

of melted ice cream. It's great, But I mean maybe that has something to do with people being ambivalent about it. And then I don't know, you know, it's easy to be ambivalent about anything that's tied up. And they just the the over celebration of the holidays um in many parts of the U. S And the Western world. So uh, you know, everyone's going to have their own opinion of the matter. Okay, we got a message about our episodes on the reptiles of the Galapagos. This is from Sean.

Sean says, hey, guys, I'm an archaeologist in New York State. I just listened to the Galapagos reptile episodes. I was struck by the urine intensive nesting I remember this was in the section about the nesting habits of the Galapagos tortoises, where they would when when one of the females would come and lay a clutch of eggs, um, I don't know if clutch is the right word, lay late some

number of eggs in the sand. They would like dig out a hole and then lay the eggs and then bury it and pe on it and use the urine to form a kind of cement there So, Sean says, I was struck by the urine intensive nesting. It reminded me of the North American pack rat, whose burrows are lined with urine to make almost a natural cement fall soul burrows are handy for archaeology little time capsules. Maybe you've done a show on these guys already, but if not,

might be interesting. Love the show, Sean, Sean, I think that is a fantastic idea. The pack rat is a really weird and interesting animal when you look at their middens. Yeah, Rob, I don't know how much you've read about these guys. With these little rats, so they'll often make nests in

like caves or crevices. But then I think they can also find similar kinds of wedge like spaces in human built structures, and they will just fill them up with these, uh you know, with just junk, all different kinds of things they find from the environment, packing them in and then peeing on them to form a kind of cement. I think like the sugars and other kind of chemicals in the urine helped crystallize all the stuff together. And it's like a it's it's like a p made skyscraper

in like a wedge in a rock. Yeah. I vaguely remember researching something about them that I can't rememb number if it was for a text based piece or for a past episode of the show. At any rate, it's it's it's certainly something that would be fun to explore or re explore on the podcast. All right, here is one that comes to us from Rusty in response to our episode or episodes on animals and then ultimately humans throwing things, Rusty says Robert and Joe. Thanks for all

your work on the pod. Wide selection of interesting topics is appreciated as a lover of all things to do with evolutionary biology. I enjoyed the series on animals throwing things as I'm sure many other listeners are also animal lovers. I thought i'd share with them my personal favorite example of creatures tossing things around. Part of courtship among two cans can involve an adorable game of catch. A gift of a small barrier nut will be offered, sometimes being

passed back and forth multiple old times. In some species, this can escalate into whipping their enormous beaks around to catapult the object toward the potential mate from a distance. Presumably the repeated throwing and catching acts as a fitness test for eyebeak coordination and fine motor control. Thanks again, Rusty.

I will point out rob we we usually don't include last names when people say them, but this is obviously a pseudonym, because this listener wrote in under the name Rusty Shackleford, which is the fake name that Dale Gripple always gives him King of the Hill. Oh okay, I I didn't realize that. I don't think I've ever watched too much King of the Hill, so I didn't catch

the reference. Oh it's great. Dale Gribble is the the lovable paranoid sovereign citizen stry and so anytime somebody uh in any official capacity asks his name, he gives a fake one, and it's usually Rusty Shackleford. Okay, okay, I know which character you're talking about. Yeah, well this is a great example though involving two cans um too. Ends have a lot of personality, so I enjoy watching them

whenever I have the chance. Usually it's you know, obviously a a captive environment, but I have gotten to see them in the wild on occasion, and uh yeah, amazing birds. I had no idea about this throwing thing. I'm gonna have to look this up, so thank you, Rusty. Alright, this next message is from Scott. It's about our episodes

on Horror Vakaway or Fear of the Void. Scott writes, at the end of your last episode on Horror Vakaway, you mentioned that there are several possible meanings of nothing which need to be distinguished, and that confusions might result from not doing this. This perked my ears because it's a common example of what in philosophy has has become known as contextualism, the idea that the meaning of many terms depends on their context, though often they can be

rigorously defined given that context. For example, the box is empty may mean one thing if said in a class discussing quantum physics, another in a physics lab attaching a vacuum hose to the box, a third to a child shaking a decorated cube under a Christmas tree. Furthermore, the phrase this room is clean may mean one thing, from a child to a parent after wiping up some spilled sugar, another to a maid speaking to a house owner, and

a third to a manager of semiconductor factory. It's not just that the word has metaphorical meanings which don't apply across all contexts, like an FBI agent speaking of a filthy bathroom where alas no drugs were found, but that the word can in some sense mean the same thing in each context devoid of something. But how clean or empty it must be depends on the context. Another common application is to the word knowledge. I know it is safe to do X has one set of standards when

playing a game or a little as at stake. Another wind spoke and in the control room of a nuclear reactor, and a third one said in a philosophy class discussing

Cartesian skepticism. Scott, Yeah, I think that's a great point. Scott, Yeah, so I think nothing would be subject to contextualism in these different kinds of discussions, Like so a box that you know, you might say that there's nothing in a box when actually it's just full of atmosphere, or you might sort of meaning the same thing, but just applying a higher level of rigor, say there's nothing in a box when it is fully evacuated of of atmosphere and

just just a vacuum inside. I mean, assuming that we're possible again, when you're talking about a vacuum inside a container, it's always just lower and lower gas pressure. But then you would also have another level of like there's nothing in a box, meaning there's not even space in there. And in that case, I don't even know what that would mean. Maybe that's an oxymoron or not an oxymoron,

I don't know, an incoherent claim. But I also think this last example you use about knowledge is a right one that like you can use the word no to mean totally different things in different contexts, even are not totally different things, but just having different levels of rigor for what counts as knowledge, and people leverage exactly this equivocation in arguments and conversations all the time. This is

a major type of argument by equivocation. Of course, equivocation is using the same word two different ways in two different steps of your argument. So you can basically try to undermine or refute anything anybody believes by just saying like, well,

do you really know that for sure? And of course any reasonable person like if you pride them like that, we'll start admitting will like, no, I don't have a hundred percent certainty on anything I think I believe, you know, that kind of Cartesian skepticism level of certainty, where like

you can only believe things that are a logical necessity. Uh, And then you try to leverage that against them, just believing something to be true, believing they have knowledge about something the same way we have knowledge about all kinds of things in our everyday lives. And that's that's really a kind of illicit move because the level of certainty that you need for everyday knowledge is a lot lower, and yet it still justifies all all the normal knowledge

beliefs you have. You know, how do you know, like anything you see in front of you is actually there? I mean, there's no real reason to doubt that unless you just put on a VR headset or something. Yeah, Well, you know, sometimes you just have a you have a bad potato or bad bad stew or something. Right, there's something wrong with your gruel. Yeah, what does it? There's more gravy than grave about you. Yes, all right. Should we do a couple related to Weird House Cinema? Sure? Yes.

This one comes to us from Andrew. Andrew says, Hi, guys love the show, etcetera, etcetera. I was a little disappointed in the both of you when you were discussing instance is in film of normally populated areas being depopulated for effect, and neither of you mentioned the airport in the one Solid Gold classic TV mini series The Langoliers. You can make it up to me by featuring the legal Ears on Weird House Cinema. There's a character whose

personality is that he's hungry. There are meatballs that eat the past. It's a no brainer for Weird House. Please and thank you Andrew. There are meatballs that eat the past. That is. I think a literal description of the monsters and the lango ears is that they are like c g I hairy meatballs who fly around eating time. Now, the weird thing is, I remember when this came out. I was getting out TV mini series, and it has, at least looking back on it now, as a pretty

solid cast. You've got the likes of Frankie Faison and Dean Stockwell and it David Morris Um and some others of note um. But I never saw it. I read the novella though, and I remember loving the novella, and it came out one of those King collections of like four novellas or something. I figure which one it was, but I remember really digging the Langoliers. I totally pictured the meatballs as the Critters from the Crits from the Critters movies. I I don't think the the the the

original novella was very shy about this. It seemed like they were just basically the crates. But I and I remember enjoying it, it being kind of like this fun Stephen King Twilight Zone episode sort of story. I don't think I realized it was based on a novella, or if I ever knew that, I had forgotten, I would have assumed it was straight to TV. There was a whole thing in the eighties through the nineties of this

vibe that was the TV adaptation of Stephen King. So I'm not talking about Stephen King novels adapted into R rated movies to go in the theater. But Stephen King novels made as a multi as a like a mini series to be on T and T or ABC or something. Uh didn't they? They did the Stand I think, and they did the Langal Years and wasn't even it wasn't the original it movie and made for TV mini series.

He certainly was. Yeah, there was also Golden Years in their Golden Years was like an original screenplay of Memory Serves from Stephen King and was not finished. I remember thinking it was amazing when it came out because I was just really excited for Stephen King TV content, But nobody else was excited about this. I don't think they did one for Rose Red, uh that I think that

was into the two thousands. They did Let's see the oh oh, the Shining not the one, not the Cooper one, but the one that was quote more faithful to the book. That was a TV mini series, wasn't it with the guy from Wings on it? Yeah? Yeah, that was the guy from Wings, not wings Houser. That would have been different. Oh my god, you should have had wings Houser as Jack Torrence. The acting question is Stephen Webber, who is a fine actor. He's he's been in some things I've

really left. He's an one of my favorite episodes of Tales from the Crypt titled Morning Mess or Morning Mess about Google's eating people in the cemetery. Um. And I think he was maybe kind of a favorite actor of of Stephen Kings, or is a favorite actor Stephen Kings because I remember Stephen King. Uh. There's a Stephen king episode of the nineties Outer Limits series and I think

he played memory serves on this. He plays the voice of and the picture in a picture frame that keeps talking to this lady after she gets shot in the head. It's a Christmas episode. Wait, no, I'm still thinking even more. Wasn't the Toby Hooper Salem's Lot adaptation actually a made for TV mini series? I believe it was. Yeah, I think that was. That was also not not a theatrical release. Um. And Tommy Knocker was another. Oh my god, yes Tommy.

Now there were so many of them. Yeah, I mean part of it's probably these are some some long books, so if you can you start adapting them and then you quickly realize I don't think this is the film, guys, I think this is a mini series, and I'm sure we're missing some prime examples as well. Yeah, I just think that's so funny that, like a popular author noted for very R rated grotesque ory, and the source material

it was so associated with made for TV content. Yeah. Like, coming back to the line leers for example, it's a TV mini series. It's two episodes, so, um, again, I haven't seen it. I'm not even sure how long each episode is. Off the top of my head, i'd have to look at the and and I'm not I'm not finding Oh here it is. It looks like each episode is an hour and thirty minutes. So we're talking a three hour movie here, which I guess nowadays especially people

were like, yeah, aren't all movies three hours? Um? That seems like like how how long I spend in the movie theater if I go to one, um, not counting the commercials in the three and a half hours once the trailers are in there. But you know, it's if you're gonna tell the whole story, you're either gonna have to know you're gonna have to cut it down, or you're gonna have to figure out how you're gonna fit it, and at the time, maybe they just didn't fit into

the movie theaters. I don't know. Maybe the argument could be maybe the Lango Leaders is not something you want to actually have in theaters. Maybe it is more ultimately the tv um TV project. And certainly it's very Twilight Zones and its styling, so maybe it makes sense. Do do we have Peter Jackson to thank for that that? Like it's just normal for movies to be three hours long? Now?

I don't know, Uh, that would be an interesting um discussion to look at, you know, long films and especially I guess key to what we're talking about here, long major US releases as opposed to like long art films and so forth. Mhm. So I don't know, open question at least for for us. Okay, Rob, I think you've got to do this one from Eric because it's on the subject that I know is dear to your heart. Oh yeah, yeah, this one's from Eric. This is be a discord um. So if you want to join the

stuff to blow your mind discord, just email us. We're going to share the email address in a bet and we'll send you the link that seems to be the way, it works best for folks to join it. But anyway, Eric writes and says, I started listening to the last Starfighter episode and I have to pay respects to your kind words about Underworld three. I feel like I never

see anyone praising any of those movies. I myself am a fan of the first three actually, uh the three Underworld films, but I agree with your comments about it actually being a good prequel. I usually have a disdain for many prequels right out of the gate, since they typically seem to exist only to be a cash grab. The powers that be need to make another buck, but don't know how to push a story forwards, so they

go backwards. No doubt Underworld three exists for these reasons. However, Underworld three, I thought did a really good job at making a good prequel, expanding on a little bit of info we got in the first film. All so, Michael Sheen's Lucien is a great character. Sorry, a little random ha ha. I was listening and was like, WHOA someone

else actually likes an Underworld movie exclamation point. I have seen no Underworld movies, but Rob, I I really appreciate how you know the the some of the camp movies that you champion are not only like the ones that have become cult classics that like folks, you should know that. I was once invited to Rob's house to watch Chronicles of Rittick and we it was a good time. Yeah, yeah, I still stand by Chronicles of Rittick, and this I think feels this is I would put this into some

of these films in a similar category. So I still need to rewatch Underworld three this decade, so I'm not super fresh on it, but I do remember it fondly. It has the two best actors from the first Underworld movie, Michael Sheen and Bill Knight, who are both marvelous actors

and and but very versatile. They can both play I mean Michael Sheen, for example, we think of him for playing more dramatic or certainly even over the top comedic roles, but in Underworld three, he's like this ripped action star um. And of course Bill Night is the same way. You

can play a very relatable, compassionate figure. He can be uh uh, he can play comedy, and he can also play just a vile vampire lord anyway, So those those actors get to have a lot of screen time um, and I feel like the plot of the movie works well with the inherent limitations of a prequel, at least in my recollection. I was just thinking about what I know Michael Sheen from I realized I think he's read at least one audio books that I really enjoyed, but

I can't remember what it was. I associate him with being a good audio book reader. May have to come back to that, but I know he's also he's in some of those Twilight sequels where he he like, hang, isn't he Am I wrong about that? No? No, he is. He plays a vampire lord in in those movies, okay, but a very like a aristocratic and fancy uh that it is regrettable that we must kill you that kind

of Uh. Yeah. He has some sort of over the top character in that that Tron remake Slash sequel that they did as well, so he can go, we're very broad and his performances, but can also like really, you know again, very versatile performer. Uh. He had a fun role on thirty Rock playing um a character by the name of Wesley Snipes who was a British man that Liz Lemon dates and it was it was a fun uh fun. I guess lower key kind of comedic performance. So I don't know. Maybe maybe maybe we'll come back

around Underworld. But I couldn't just throw you right into Underworld three. If we were to do weird House, you'd, I guess you'd have to see Underworld one through two, and and then there are additional Underworld I think he goes up to five, but I only saw the first three. After the third one, I was like, Okay, this is this is as good as it's gonna get. So I'm done as good as this franchise can get. I need to add that caveat. I'm not talking about cinema in general.

Well wait, this is kind of country. The last time you were talking to me about the Underworld movies, you said skip one, skip two, and go to three, and I was like, hey, this is the same thing you should do with the Fast and the Furious movies. Well, I guess you could. It is a prequel. But then again, I mean I look back and I remember really enjoying the first one when it came out, and and a

lot of people did not enjoy it. Um so, and I don't know, I don't know if I would be up for rewatching the first one at this point, but I remember liking it back in the day. I remember the second one was I was less into and found it kind of um and I just couldn't immerse myself in it. And then I enjoyed three. So yeah, I'm not sure. Maybe I'll still I'll still stick with that. Yeah, just just skip to three or start with two. I don't know you can. You can forge your own path

through the franchise. Okay, do we need to wrap up there for today? Yeah, I think that's probably a good place to go ahead and close everything out. But we'll be back with more. We have more listener mail that we didn't get to do in this episode, and more of it we'll keep coming in thanks to you find listeners.

So yeah, lets let us have it. Keep sending in your listener mail, send in your thoughts on past, present, and future episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind, Weird House Cinema, The Monster Fact, or just other episodes of listener mail. We'd love to hear from you. We read it all, even if we don't read it on listener mail or respond to you personally. Huge thanks to our

audio producer J J. Paseway. 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 a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.