Listener Mail: Turtle of Enormous Girth

vegetable lamb of tartary. Yeah. Yeah, the Stuff to Blow your Mind discussion module. You can look that up on Facebook and request to join if you want. Um And I'm going to see about getting that added to the the I Heart Listening for our website. I was just noticing that that some other podcasts in our network have additional links on there. It's like, hey, we can throw some stuff on those links. Why not? Uh? But anyway, Daniel writes, um r E colin the listener maile mentioning

eventually grown meat cultured from human celebrity tissue cage sneaks. Yes, Daniel rights. It comes up in anti viral from not the main plot hook more as background world building, but exactly what he suggested fans by steaks grown from their

idol sell samples to be close to them. Daniel continues had never heard of the film before, just happened to spot it on my local public libraries DVD shelves last week and noticed it was written and directed by Brandon Cronenberg and wondered how much like his dad's movies his would be? Quite was the answer? Nice, I had no idea this existed. I also don't think I knew that David Cronenberg had a son who was also a filmmaker. Yeah, I knew that this existed, but I just I hadn't

watched it. Um not that I wasn't interested, but but it is good to hear that the chron in Burghs don't fall too far from the Cronenberg tree. It's a weird tree. Speaking of the the film collections at public libraries, I have a very weird member. There was a period where I was I had figured out whoa I can save money Instead of like looking for scratch DVDs at the local used book and CD store, I can save money by renting DVDs from the library for free, but

their selection was so odd. I remember there being a shelf that the main items that caught my attention on it were disks for Inland Empire, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and Flubber. You know, I don't remember ever renting a movie from the library public library, but I remember they had them, and I do have family members to this day who I think get most of their movies from the public library, which, yeah, I mean, go

for it. Why not? Libraries are great. Now. On the the issue of Brandon Cronenberg, however, I can't help but think that the David Cronenberg was being a little bit of a hypocrite just naming his son a normal, boring name like Brandon, when he comes up with such remarkably creative, weird names for characters in his movies. Yes, why was his Why was his child not named like uh, fleshly

rector Cronenberg or something? Yeah? Why not? Alright? This next message comes from Cindy, also about vegetable name of tartary, adding to the long chain of responses we've got about people eating raw potatoes. Cindy says, my first time writing in I often have the urge to write in while listening to an episode, but I usually procrastinate until I forget. Luckily, the raw potato topic has come up in two listener males in a row, so I had no excuses this time.

One of my favorite dishes at Angelo Pietro, a Japanese style Italian restaurant in Honolulu, Hawaii, is their raw potato salad, and she and lads a link to a photo which looks to me. I've never had a raw potato salad, but just in a low rez photo, it looks kind of like a shredded dike on salad, you know, just like strips of white vegetable matter, apparently dressed and covered in some herbs. Cindy goes on the link, describes the dish and provides a recipe directly from the restaurant. The

shredded potato salad is definitely served raw. It is crisp and delicious and readily takes on the flavor of the dressing. I've had it many times during my visits and when I lived there, and I don't recall any gastro intestinal upset after consuming it. So maybe Cindy's here to put fears to rest about too many worries about upset stomach after eating raw potato, assuming it's not greening and full of solanine. Cindy goes on. Unfortunately, the article does not

provide the origins of the dish. My googling did not turn up any information on whether it's a specialty of either Japanese or Italian food culture. The only thing similar that I can think of is Sichuanese. Um. I'm gonna try to say this chong ban too. So see a spiced shredded potato salad where the potatoes are briefly blanched or stir fried to lightly cook them and keep them crispy and crunchy before being dressed. It's usually served cold.

Since this is not an American food culture thing crisp raw potatoes as a vegetable, I thought a different perspective was interesting. Anyway, keep up the wonderful work. I truly enjoy all of the episodes, be they science or myth heavy. They keep my brain working and continuously learning. Thank you, Cindy. Oh, I had to look up this restaurant. I don't I'm not planning to be back in Honolulu anytime soon, but it looks great. It looks like a place I'd love

to check out. Sichuan ease food is one of my favorite kinds of food, but I've never I've read about this uh shredded potato salad before, but I've never tried it, and I would very much like to. Maybe I'll have to figure out how to make this at home. I have been working on my ability to make Sichuan cuisine at home because I found an online market that's sells a lot of good ingredients you need, like the Sichuan peppercorns and the UH and the zatsi and stuff like that. Yeah,

you were telling me about this, Yeah, all right. Our next bit of listener mail is in response to a Monster Fact episode about World Turtles. Uh. Specifically, we we lead in that episode with it being about a Pokemon that is a turtle with like a forest on its back, but ultimately is it Squirtle? Is it the one Pokemon I know? No, No, it's it's tort Tara. It's not Squirtle,

though the Squirtle is great too. This one is like an enormous turtle with generally depicted as having like a tree growing out of its um at the top of its shell, like a forest on its shell. Nice. Yeah, and there they are featured in the the entertaining motion picture Pokemon Detective Pikachu. When you get around to seeing that one, Joe, does that one have the baby Pikachu

in it? Um? I don't remember seeing the baby Pikachu Pechu in that movie, though my son says that he was there, or we saw one in a cut scene or something. I don't know. He does not factor heavily

into the plot. Anyway, this listener was writing in in regard to some of the the more pop culture references to this idea of a world turtle, a turtle that is upon which the world is placed, or you know that they're various versions of this, and anyway, Mike writeson And says, when you were talking about examples of mythological turtles with the world on their back, I immediately thought

of Maturin from Stephen King's books. In it, Maturin is the is the force of good that opposes Pennyworth, Pennyworth, penny Wise, penny Wise. This confusing with Alfred from Batman. I well, uh, yeah, I'm sure Mike means the penny Wise. Uh. And in the Dark Tower series, Maturin exists as a mythological character for the people of Midward World. The main character in the Dark Tower series tells the others about a poem from his childhood quote see the turtle of

enormous girth on his shell, he holds the earth. His thought is slow but always kind. He holds us all within his mind on his back. All vows are made. He sees the truth but mayn't aid. He loves the land, and loves the sea, and even loves a child like me. Thanks for the show. It's always entertaining and educational. Well, you know, um, this is a great point. I forgot all about, um the world Turtle from Stephen King's Dark Tower. And also Yet. Yeah, it does show up, and it's

been a very long time since I read that. But there's all that additional stuff that I don't think made it into the movies, about the the ritual of Chud and the World Turtle and so forth. I think that's one of those books that must be paired down, even if made into multiple movies or a four hour mini series. Yeah. I did really enjoy the first of the two recent I in general both film adaptations of Yet. I liked the first part and wasn't crazy about the second part. Yep, yep,

I'm pretty much right there. You know who directed the TV mini series of it, the original one with Tim Curry. Oh yeah, they tie into something we were watching us, Tommy Lee Wallace, director of Halloween three season. That's right, that's right. Well, there's some great stuff in that. In that that old the first part of the old mini series version of it that came out in Okay, Rob, you ready for this one from Lurch? Yes, let's hear from Lurch. Okay, this is an about an old episode

on tidally locked planets. Lurch says, good morning, gentlemen. I am interrupting my driving out here in the back of Beyond to offer some thoughts on a very old episode. I apologize for not being very pacific. I listened to it months ago and just don't remember the title, but it's been percolating in the dark recesses of my mind

ever since. At the end of the episode, you asked for a listener input on what we thought the weather might be like on a relatively earthlike planet if said planet was tidally locked to the local star, and a quick reference at tidal locking means that the planet's rotation has become synchronous with its orbit around something, either around the planet or around a star, so the same side of the planet always faces into the into the thing

that it's orbiting. Yeah. So like if it was an earthlike world, it would mean that one side of the Earth it's locked in perpetual daylight and the other side of perpetual darkness. Yeah. Earth's moon is tidally locked with the Earth, so the same side of the Moon is always facing the Earth. You never see the far side of the Moon unless from like a spacecraft photo. Right. Lurch goes on to say, if said planet was tidally locked to the local star, I don't think it would

be earth like for very long geologically speaking. Once it stopped rotating in relatively short order, there would be a continuous wind storm racing it hundreds of miles per hour or faster from the dark side to the light side than rising as the air warms near the center of the sunlit face, before racing back to the night side, where it cools and sinks to ground level and flows sunward again. The air flow cross section would look rather like a stretched out rubber band, but it's a mistake

to think it would be that simple. The surface of a planet is not really homogeneous. Some places will warm more and faster than others. This would twist the wind flow. Eventually there would be a ginormous cyclonic storm centered at the most sunward point in the hemisphere, where all the shrieking winds will eventually run out of room and fountain up towards space, driven by the mass of air coming up behind. As the air races to the sunlit side, it will soon scour away anything in its path. Even

mountains will be erased. In a few million years, When the mass of the air piles up, it will slow and drop most of the dust it's been carrying. As the mountains elsewhere erode, a new single mountain, comprised of their dust and bones will grow and take shape at the center of the sunward vortex. Eventually it will make Olympus Mons, the biggest mountain on Mars, look like an ant hill. The dark side is not without it's called

a tourists though. Just as on the day side, uneven ground temperatures will set up a hemisphere spanning vortex as the air being pushed from the hot side cools and sinks instead of a mountain of dust and debris. Though the water carried by the air will condense and freeze, leading to another mountain of ice not stone. It seems to me this mountain will probably be smaller than the

daylight one. I think it likely that much of the water will continue to cycle from the cold side to hot then back again somewhere near the terminator, and that would be the border between the lit side. In the dark side of the planet, liquid water runoff from the ice sheet will flow sunward, carrying sediment and dust that got blown to the cold zone. Eventually, the streams and rivers will vanish as the wind whips the surface of the water to a froth and carries the spray away

on another cycle. At either weather pole. The lightning display would be phenomenal given the amount of static electricity that would be generated by the winds. Life could even survive on such a planet, though I'm of the opinion it would buy necessity be small, too much cross section, and the winds would tear it apart. Whether it be a dirt dweller or airborne bacteria and the like. Yeah, subsurface marine life, yes, even something like coral capable of building small,

low lying shelters might work. Tarte grades would probably call it an amusement park with a heck of an e ticket ride, but I doubt anything bigger than a quarter could cut it. Maybe at the relative center of the vortices, and I'm pretty sure the atmosphere wouldn't freeze out, not so long as the star provides enough heat to drive the weather engine of such things, does the occasional truck driver ponder on the long highways. Thank you for taking

the time to read this. Thanks for easing my day's lurch. Oh thanks lurch. This is a great email, um, and it lines up somewhat with with with hypothetical scenarios I've read in the past. It's been a while, so I forget some of the details, but yeah, this seems to line up mostly with the kinds of things I've read people describing about what a planet like that might be like. Though, I wonder how far away a planet can be from a star and and be tidally locked to that star.

I would think that tidle locking, I think tends to happen when things are closer to the thing they're orbiting, And of course, as a rocky world gets closer to it's uh, it's host star, there's there's a greater and greater chance that this atmosphere is just blown away into space. Yeah, yeah, this isn't. This is a much older episode. I don't remember how this episode is. It's old enough that I have on occasion recently thought I wonder if that's a

topic that we should revisit on the show. But after an email this good, maybe we don't have to. So Yeah, bravo, lurch. Richly imagined and as far as I can tell, mostly pretty physically plausible. If anybody in the geophysical sciences wants to chime in and agree, disagree, or expand on this scenario, please write in as well. Anyway, it's it's a fascinating topic and one that's been explored in numerous uh sci fi treatments and uh and speaking of science fiction, let's

get into a little weird house cinema. Oh yeah, man, we got some messages from people who have more diver knowledge than I would have imagined existed. Yeah. Yeah, I was pleasantly surprised with the amount of giver feedback we we heard. You know, I wasn't sure if this one was one where I just didn't know what kind of a following the Giver had. But this one comes to

us from Matthias. Matthias says, Hey, Robert and j I normally don't listen to the Weird House Cinema episodes because I'm not much of a movie buff, but I happened to be a fan of Geiver. When I saw that episode pop up in my feed, I listened to it immediately. My history with Geiver goes back to when I was a child in the mid nineties. I rented the VHS anime tapes from the likes of Blockbuster and Rogers Video or no Rogers Video. Maybe it's a regional thing. Wait,

is that a compound? Is it Blockbuster and Rogers Video? No? Unless that is a regional thing at any rate, is is? Uh uh? And I was hooked, although I'm not sure why my parents allowed me to watch them with all the violence and swearing. When I was older, I discovered the live action Guiver movie, the one you guys watched. And it wasn't until my late teens, when I showed the movie to my friends that I discovered Mark Hamill

is in fact not the Giver. As a kid, I knew Mark Hamill was Luke Skywalker, but I didn't understand that he looked that way in the seventies and this movie was from the nineties. I then associated the person that look the closest to Luke Skywalker as Mark Hamill. It's something my friends and I still laugh about to this day. So he thought that the young guy in the movie, what's the character, Sean or whatever, the blonde boy that was Mark Hamill, when really Mark Hamill is

this mustache man. That's interesting because we we speculated and has been speculated by others as well, of course, that this is what the filmmakers intended. They're like, well, Mark's too old to play this character. Can we get somebody who kind of looks like Mark Hamill to play this part? Uh? The kids won't know the difference, and lo and behold, Uh it seems to be the case. Right, So we have his name on the box and that'll get you

in there, and then you just assume it's this guy. Yeah. Now, Matthias shares a lot of excellent information about the Guy over franchise, including various clips, and I will share you Matthias. I looked at these. Uh, there's one when we pointed out that there's a great fight scene in one of the animes, and I did check that out. I'm always game for some sort of a great weird alien versus dude in alien costumes suit. But I'm not going to go through all of these tidbits just because I don't

know how. I don't know how deep the thirst is for most listeners when it comes to to the Gueiver. But here's here's one thing that Mathiah shares about the sequel, Geiver Dark Hero quote. The live action sequel Geiver Dark Hero took itself a lot more seriously than it's prequel, but it is entertaining enough if you wanted to kill time. There's a lot more superhuman martial arts that goes on.

While Sean now David Hayter, well known as the voice of Solid Snake, searches for information on Chronos, the Geiver and the aliens that created the Geiver unit, I don't think it's Memi enough to warrant a weird House Cinema episode. What do you mean by Mimi? At any rate? Mathiah shares some more tidbits from the Geiver universe, and I enjoyed learning more about it. But also ends with I don't want to bomb you guys with too much Geiver lore, so I'll leave it at that. Thanks for the episode.

It was fun, Matthias and the Guiver males. Do not stop because next we've got one from Devon. Devon says, Hello, Rob and Joe. I've been a fond listener of your podcast for several years now, but have not been moved to right until now. With two Weird House Cinema episodes touching on pieces of my teenage life and stray mentions of the movie version of my favorite book, I decided

the time is now. I was a large anime geek in the nineties, as was the style at the time, and was a fan of both the Za Ram's anime counterpart za Ram was another movie we did about an alien and a bounty hunter uh and the Giver anime. To hear you both talk about these series brought me into a rabbit hole of nostalgia. Well, I don't have much to add to the Za Ram discussion the Guiver discussion.

I can shed some light on Geivers anime only lasted twelve episodes, covering the Chronos Japan arc from the manga This is the same plot that the first movie roughly covers. While condensing and americanizing the plot, some of the broader strokes are intact with a PG. Thirteen schlock coating to cover the disturbing gore of the anime series. Geiver was

an attempt at a dark tokusatsu series. As at the time, traditional tokusatsu was on a bit of a decline in Japan and late eighties and early nineties, anime and manga were being pulled in a dark, violent and sexual direction. As such, combining the style of other popular dark body horror anime, they did their own spin on the tokusatsu hero.

This is why the original Geiver had the coloration of Ultraman Hey, Ultraman uh from what was the movie we did uh Hanuman and the Seven Ultraman Devon goes on and many features reminiscent of Kaman Rider, a still very popular tokusatsu series. These are the ones that are much

more directly similar or to the Power Rangers. Devon writes, what caught me most about this film was that it tried to keep most of the creature design and translated to rubber suit monsters, you can actually draw parallels between some of the monsters in the manga and those in the American movie. This plus a number of details and dedication to the gross cronin Bergeean aspects that were a

staple of the original. In fact, I remember that the second movie actually tries to rhet con in a lot of information and characters left out of the first movie, such as the second geiver unit. Oh boy, uh that is damaged and working for Chronos, the Chronos Corporation. Something tells me that screaming Mad George was actually a fan

of the original source material. Uh. Now there's more of this email that I think we don't have time to get into today, where Devon goes into great detail about the movie of the Last Unicorn, which we may come to someday. Um, But but I think we'll have to leave it there for now. Though, I have to share Devon's transition, which is saying, now that we have eaten the meat we slapped together, let's take a slightly more wholesome turn. Very very well done, Yes, and I do

appreciate that the additional tidbits about the Last Unicorn. It's been been a while since I read that, And actually, when I think back. I think I only read the first half to my son and then we had to return the book to the library. But the book of the book was pretty pretty good as well. I definitely read up through uh the end of the cycle with with Mommy Fortuna, who is wonderfully voiced in that by

Angela Lansbury. Um, great, great, which voice, And really that's the I think that's the best part of the That's the best part of the movie to the first half in my opinion, but well worth checking out. All right, We're gonna go ahead and close up the mail bag on this episode, but we will be back with more

Listener Mail in the future. Some Monday in the future, you will check the Stuff to Blow your my own podcast feed and lo and behold, there will be a new episode of listener Mail, and then following that on a Tuesday, there will be a core episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, followed by a Monster Factor and Artifact, followed by another core episode on a Thursday, followed by a Weird House Cinema on a Friday. That's our time to set aside most serious concerns and just talk about

a weird film. 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 a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for My heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.