Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind a listener mail. My name is Robert Lamb.
And I am Joe McCormick, and today we're going to be reading back some messages that came into the Stuff to Blow Your Mind email address. If you have never gotten in touch before, this is a great time to try it. You can email us at contact at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Whatever kind of message you want to send is fair game. We always appreciate if you have something interesting to add to a topic
we've talked about on the show. If you want to suggest something you would like us to talk about in the future, if you want to suggest a movie for Weird House Cinema, general feedback of course, factual corrections if that ever comes up. Whatever you want, it's all fair game. Contact at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Rob you just got in off the road, anything anything to report from wherever you went?
Oh yeah, yeah, the family and I just traveled to Denver and back. So first time in Denver. Got to experience some of the great outdoors there, some of the offerings in the city itself, you know, went to miow Wolf, went to their excellent art museum, went to the excellent science museum. Actually got several really good ideas for the show from their science museum. So stay tuned for the future on that one.
Okay, do you want to kick things off with some of these messages in response to the Star Wars.
Series, Let's do it. Yeah.
Okay. This first message is from Kenna. It's in response to our discussion from Star Wars Week about the planet Hawth. Now, in that episode, we did an extended segment, among other things, about the infamous ton Toon sleeping bag scene from the Empire Strikes Back. So in this scene, Han Solo cuts open the body of this animal called a ton Toon in the movie. It's a fictional creature in the Star
Wars universe. It looks kind of like a part goat, part theropod dinosaur, and he cuts it open in the belly so that he can cram an unconscious Luke Skywalker inside the animal to protect Luke from freezing to death. And in the episode we talked about whether this would work in reality and about some real life cases of people crawling inside dead animals to try and survive. The cold, it has been done. This first message is from Kenna.
Subject horses are wet. Kenna says, Hi, Robert, Joe and JJ love the show and have unusual life experience to share with you. It may, however, be too gross, so apologies in advance to whoever's turn it is to skim the mailbag. Yeah, so warning folks has some animal gutting details to follow. If you can't stand that, maybe skip ahead a few minutes.
All right, the folks who couldn't handle it have left the room. Continue.
I am a veterinary pathologist's assistant, meaning that dead cows and horses are my job. I think I know why the hapless hunters in Idaho could not fully hide within their horses the ribs and now this refers back to one of the real life cases of hiding inside an animal. We talked about the couple of hunters who got lost while out hunting in Idaho. They were trapped in a blizzard. They got soaking wet, so they survived by killing their horses,
cutting them open, and crawling the inside. But one part of the story is one of the guys who had this experience described it there being a lot less room inside the horse than they expected. I think they first thought that they could get two guys inside one horse, and you couldn't even get one hole guy in there.
Yeah, and horses are huge animals, obviously, and especially when you're around a big one, you might well think, oh, yeah, yeah, this room for two in there. There's room for two on top.
But no, it couldn't even get the whole one regular sized guy in there. Legs were sticking out, which yeah, sounds unpleasant in multiple ways. But anyway, so now Kenna has an answer for us. The ribs could be a problem here. Kenna says, see, in my experience, the easiest way to remove the organs of any animal for inspection is to remove the back leg, open the abdomen, and remove the digestive tract. This takes us upwards of thirty minutes because we have to look for anomalies, so probably
much less time. If you are desperate, you can do it with no tools but a knife, and you could keep the leg on if all you cared about was the warm body cavity. However, you need tools such as a saw or a really long pair of hedge tremors to open the ribs. It is very hard to remove the lungs of any animal without getting through those best case scenario, you can slowly get pieces of them out through the diaphragm, but the inside of a horse's rib cage is generally not very roomy and may not be
worth the effort. Cows, especially dairy cows or mature breeding females, have very widely set ribs. I am five four and chubby, but by experience I can get most of me in there to take samples. And if you have a buddy to help you turn the turn the body over, you could get a large flap of leather to cover whatever sticks out. Wow, cows. Cows do tend to be wetter than horses, however, because of all the roomen. Oh, I guess that's the that's the fermentation stomach, isn't it.
Yeah.
Finally, Kenna says, I recommend a shovel to make a long, gross story very short. If you must be ton toon wrapped, the cow is probably better than a horse. Thanks for years of things I can talk about at work, Kenna.
All right, well, this is again, as I said before, this is exactly the sort of real world field reportings that we love to see on stuff to blow your mind, listener, male.
Absolutely. I mean most of what we talk about on the show is just stuff that we learn about by reading about it. So anybody who has life experience that can inform, you know, from your work or from your personal life, whatever it is that can inform the subjects we've talked about, we love to get that kind of feedback.
Yeah, I know we're returning to a subject that we've talked about at least this is like the third time now, because it's a good camp on a previous listener mail as well, I believe. But on one hand, it seems like there should be a country western song about this, yeah, or it should be just a common feature you know, that will at least come up in passing. And then this leads me back to something else that I've mentioned before, and that is that episode of The X Files where
there's an invisible elephant. If memory serves, there is a scene where there is an autopsy performed, or a necropsy rather on an elephant, and I think like Moulder and Scully are both standing inside the elephant, or maybe just one of them.
You know, I don't remember. I did see that episode on my ex files journey, but I don't remember that scene.
Yeah, you had episode that's the worst of the X Files just about so.
I think it's not just an elephant if I remember right, it's like a whole zoo of invisible animals.
Oh wow, yeah, oh how could that not be great? The whole zoo. And it's not one of the top episodes. M hmm, it's one of the few. The backstory here, as I've mentioned before, as a as a when I was a young person catching the X Files, X Files and television, I only caught like two episodes. This was before you could you know, the DVR stuff and so forth, So it was just like, when can I catch it on you know, whatever episode is being served up to me by fate. I saw the up maybe I saw
three episodes. I remember seeing episode about the dude in the toilet, and then about the dude toilet the toilet monster, and then the dude who's stretchy and comes up through the toilet. I think they both are toilet.
I thought, I'm thinking of the same thing. Well maybe then I don't know who the dude in the toilet is.
The creature in the port of like at the bottom of the toilet.
Oh oh oh, I see, yes there is. You're the Flukeman and I think Tombs two different creatures who both come through sewage plumbing.
Up through the toilet. Okay, yeah, but then.
There's Flukeman is the more direct toilet monster.
Yeah.
The Tombs is just stretchy and he goes all all kinds of.
Places, including toilet. Yeah, but there's no toilet in the Zoo Animal. And I and as I remember the Zoo Animal episode, the Invisible Elephant Elephant episode is the last one I saw, and that one kind of maybe made me push pause in catching X Files episodes.
Oh man, I need to go. File says it's there's such a range. The best episodes are like the best TV ever made, and the worst episodes are some of the worst. It's really incredible. Okay, do you want to pick the next one to read? You take your pick, go go with whatever you like.
All right, let's see. Well, there's more Tonton material here we could Uh yeah, there's one from Annel here titled ton Ton Montana, and Daniel says, hi, fellas are e your recent discussion of the Tonton Sleeping Bag and the
Lost Hunters. I wanted to bring up Jack London's nineteen oh eight short story to Build a Fire, firstly because it had a lot in common with the story of the Hunters, except with a dog instead of a horse and a very different ending for both men and animal, but also because it contains this sentence quote he remembered the story of the man caught in a storm who killed an animal and sheltered himself inside the dead body
and thus was saved. I think it was possible that they were inspired by a similar sort of folk tale or the short story itself and later the Tontan or it all might have been mixed into the story and potentially their memories by the sort of Well, it would just make sense logic that memory often relies on thanks and love from Daniel.
Thank you so much, Daniel. Yeah, this came up because the guys who were the hunters who got lost and ended up crawling inside their horses. In one retelling of the story, they actually mentioned that they got this idea from talking about the Empire strikes back, so they had Tonton consciousness when they got in those horses. But it's entirely possible they could have been inspired by I don't know earlier stories like this. I wasn't aware of this.
I think I've read this story before, but it's been so long I don't remember this detail at all.
Same I read this so long ago, and I remember I remember more of the stuff that had to do with just like the challenges of building a fire. I should go back and read my Jack London again, because he wrote some pretty great tales and dabbled in some sci fi. I don't know that I've ever read any of his science fiction. But it's not all dogs and survivalism.
Well, he wrote kind of a dystopian political novel, didn't He sort of a prefiguring an idea of sort of future fascism.
Okay, yeah, I haven't read that one. I've only read the ones they would assign you in school, which were great. But yeah, it's been a long time.
I haven't read this book either, so I don't know for sure. I just have read about it. I think it's it's called something like The Iron Heel or something, so can't vouch for it. Haven't read it, but yeah, be worth interesting checking out what kind of ideas he had about that.
Yeah, or even in to build a Fire? How did they climb how does the guy climb inside a dog where it is you know, too dark to read quite true?
And maybe I'm missing some of the implications there.
Maybe like they put feet inside the dog. I mean basically you could use even a large dog only for you know, as a handwarm or something.
Yeah.
Yeah, we'll have to go back and reread it.
All right, I'm going to read this next message from Scott, subject line Contradictions in the Syth. This is about the other topic we covered on Star Wars Week, where we looked into the Sith rule of two and general Sith psychology questions, questions about power and succession within the Sith order, of which there are usually only two participants at any given time, and the contradictions that arise from that. So we're getting some more contradictions on that subject from Scott.
Scott says, Hi, Robert and Joe, your recent explorations of Sith's psychology reminded me of a long standing puzzle I've had with this order. The rule of two summarizes the master apprentice relationship, which persists even as roles change and individual Sith come and go, as a very long term strategy for undermining the Jedi through the dark side of
the force. The theory behind this is that, since the Sith work through harnessing anger, any larger group tends to splinter into internal descent and infighting, which is just barely controlled in a two person relationship. Maybe two is plenty three is a crowd when it comes to sith. What's the original two's company? Yeah, so two is just barely
not too much, Scott says. The problem I see with this is that whether this rule of two is a conscious plan or simply evolved after other strategies failed, it can't be a plan on behalf of anybody, for by definition, there are no other Sith or other peoples to do it on behalf of, Nor can it actually serve each sith lord's own personal goals, even if each of the two Sith imagines that they will somehow be an exception to the generalization that they will eventually be overthrown by
the apprentice. Their apprentice, in turn, a sober view of the history of their order would suggest that this is unlikely, so that in practice, each Sith is on a kind of suicide mission. But while most suicide attackers act in defense of a larger group who are or are imagined to have been treated unjustly, and who it is hoped, will have have better lives. After the individual self sacrifice, the Sith act on behalf of nobody, either in reality
or in their own self understanding. Indeed, the very idea of a Sith lord is a contradiction in terms, because they are not usually a lord of anything significant, at most a single apprentice, and the apprentice over no one else. In other words, while the Sith purport to extol the self and individual desire and anger, in fact they sacrifice everything personal in the name of an abstract principle. They accept their role and almost certain death, simply to spite
the Jedi. This may exemplify the master and slave dialectic described by the German philosopher Hegel. The master seeks to dominate the slave, but this means that the master defines himself and his value in terms of the slave, and in a sense exists as a master for and in vertuble you of having a slave. So if the ultimate plan of the Sith is to destroy the Jedi, dominating them and enslaving the rest of the universe, then the Sith only value themselves in terms of this conquest and domination,
rather than to serve their personal desires. This doesn't necessarily mean that Lucas's vision of the Sith is inconsistent. For perhaps it simply means that the Sith philosophy is inconsistent, and that the Sith themselves don't and perhaps can't, truly understand what scythism is and what they are doing. They are lords only in their imagination, and they are actually
slaves to the abstract principle of hatred. Rather than being selfish, Scythism is more like a virus, or, as Joe suggested at the end of your last episode, a kind of parasite. It only superficially purports to promote the self, but actually is the most self renouncing philosophy possible. It tricks the individual Sith promise to fulfill their personal desires, only to both frustrate these goals and ultimately erase them, replacing them
with the impersonal goal of the Sith order. This is self destructive in the deepest possible way, not because it will inevitably be defeated by good, but because even if, and insofar as it succeeds in attaining its goal, it has defined itself in terms of this singular goal, before which everything else, and in particular are all personal and selfish goals, must be sacrificed. Palpatine ultimately has hollowed himself out of all desires except to destroy the Jedi and
stay in power to keep them down. Anakin slash Vader must lose his beloved Padme to become a Sith, and only eventually rejects the Sith by caring once again about something personal to him. His son Luke Scott. Well, that's really interesting. Yeah, thanks a lot, Scott. I obviously you know this can feel kind of silly because we're talking about a fictional world with these fictional beings in it.
But obviously you know their behavior patterns are somewhat mirrored by some people in the real world, so I think there's some applicable philosophy and psychology to examine here. I thought it was interesting that you brought in Hegel's Master Slave Dialectic, which is also sometimes translated as the Lord Bondsman dialectic or the master Servant dialectic. I'm not deeply read on Hegel, so this is an idea I only
know about secondhand. You know, from reading other summaries, I apologize if I'm failing to do this justice in some way. But the interesting thing about it is that, so the point of Hagel's argument is originally about like what shapes the emergence of consciousness and independence and the self. So originally it's kind of a descriptive thing about the world and about how selves emerge. What this concept that he calls self consciousness or that's usually translated from the German
to be self consciousness. But the way I understand it, this dialectic also has sort of normative implications about why domination of other people is not just morally wrong but self destructive. So in this dialectic, Hegel argues that a person can't really have a free and self sufficient identity unless they are recognized by another free and self sufficient mind. So our ability to be a free person and a self sufficient person comes from being perceived and recognized as
a person by other free and self sufficient people. And this creates this contradiction in human behavior because humans in a desire to be free and self sufficient are sort of driven into conflict with one another, and people often end up thinking that they can become maximally self sufficient and empowered by dominating other people. So I make other people do what I want instead of what they want, and that is liberating to me. It helps me enact
my will. But Hagel suggests that when you dominate another person, you both define your identity in terms of that person you're dominating. You believe yourself to be valuable because you are victorious over them in some way, but you also devalue them and make them unfree through your domination, So your relationship with them is not real, like you're not getting real recognition from them. It's only recognition by compulsion
and not mutual recognition among equals. So while it feels like dominating a person could make you strong, it actually makes you hollow and dependent and without self sufficiency.
That's interesting. Yeah, And you know, certainly we can apply that understanding to various real world contexts, but also reward to apply it to this this fantasy scenario as well of a master and apprentice engaged in a two person secret order of darkness.
Well, also, I mean the broader Sith goal being one clearly of domination. Like the Sith is a domination oriented ideology. It's all about what is best in life. It's crush your enemies, see them driven before you hear the lamentation.
It's dominating people. And I'm not saying that I think George Lucas had Hegel in mind or anything, but I do think it's interesting that Scott brought this in because it does bring me back to something we talked about in the Star Wars episodes, and I think Scott alludes to this in the email too, the fact that we never really see the Sith Lords enjoying themselves or having much of an identity or finding fulfillment in anything except
in the act of exerting power and inflicting cruelty. It seems like that's the only thing they really like to do. And I sort of mention in that in the in the episode as a joke, like we never see the Sith Lords having fun, uh, but I think there may there might be something kind of interesting at work there, Like it's not just morally wrong to be a Sith Lord,
of course it is. It is wrong to inflict cruelty and domination over other people, but beyond the moral wrongness of it, it also sucks like it leaves the Sith lord with some without some core essence of self sufficiency and identity.
Yeah. Yeah, the end up being cold, hollow people and in some cases arguably no longer completely people either, you know, either they've become partially machine or they've become uh, you know, some other in some other like very visible and metaphoric way, their physical bodies have been transformed. And yeah, I think it's it's it's it's telling uh. And then of course, you know this idea that all they want is domination,
like that is the heart of the Sith. Though. One of the great things that is Lord, especially in the prequels, is the idea that this ascension, the ascension of the Sith, it may be cloaked in all these other rationales, you know, especially when you know, carrying down the Jedi order and talking about everything that's wrong and corrupt about the Jedi, but the Sith are not here to simply bring about
the end of corruption. That is that is maybe that's how they mask their true ambitions, but it is not their true ambition.
The latter to sithhood is full of pretextual goals and motivations, and then once you get to the top, all there really is is domination. Yeah.
Yeah, so we we know that the Sith don't really love much beyond domination. But we know, at least in one case, there's one particular Sith who hates sand. So let's go ahead and talk about some of our some of the listener mails that came out of our sand episode.
Okay, is it your turn? You want to take one?
Yeah, let's see. Let me sift through the mail bag here, so we have this one comes to us from Bill. Bill says Robin Joe. Thanks, as always for the continuing education on all things. I dwell in multiple deserts in Utah in Arizona, and we have some extra fine sand here that essentially has a much lower coefficient of friction, resulting in fantastic sledding. I hear the sands of the Sahara are similar because wind erosion tends to create more
spherical shape. With all the sand that I deal with on a daily basis, my brain has a hard time grasping a number equal to the grains in my sight much less on the planet. But the email continues. AnyWho, here is an interesting comparison that really quote bakes my noodle. The comparison grains of sand on Earth. Researchers estimate these are roughly seven point five plintillion grains of sand on
the planet. And then Rubik's cube combinations. A standard three x three cube has roughly forty three quintillion possible states. In short, there are nearly six times more ways to scramble a Rubek's cube than there are grains of sand on Earth. Take that sand, Okay, I mean we're dealing with numbers so huge here, Yeah, we can we really it's difficult to even make any sense of this, But
let's just say a lot in either category. But what we're saying more Rubus cube combinations than grains of sand on Earth.
Well, I'd say one difference here is that we can calculate exactly the real number of possible Rubic's cube states, whereas we have to guess at the number of grains of sand. We can only make sure informed estimate that's true.
That's true, all right, And then there's a little bit tacked on the end here. Ps. It is far too depraved, grotesque, and ultimately eighties to recommend the following flick for the general public. But Street Trash is a unique film from nineteen eighty seven that may entertain one or both of you I can't believe it has kept me laughing for nearly forty years.
Bill oh Bill, Street Trash has come up on the show before. We've talked some Street Trash folks. I don't want you to take this as a general recommendation to go watch Street Trash. It is not for many people, probably not for most. It is one of the weirdest, most extreme melt movies out there. But yeah, yeah, we've seen Street Trash.
Yeah yeah, it's been a number of years for me. But I greatly enjoyed Street Trash in the past, certainly the last time I saw it, and it was a film that I specifically remember being introduced to via a very short lived series on Comedy Central. Back this would have been I looked it up. This would have been like ninety three or ninety four. It was called drive in Reviews, based I believe out of Chicago, and there
were two hosts. It was Buzz Killman and Tony Fitzpatrick, and they had kind of like a Ciskel and Ebert set up, but they only talked about you know, gross and you know, quote tasteless films, and they talked about the quality kills. If you ever hear me say Quality Kill on Weird House Cinema. That is a little homage of mine to this show, because this is where I learned.
You know, I probably i'd seen a number of these these movies on the video shelves at this point in my life, but they were still introducing me to the ones i'd never heard of. Like I think The Beyond is a film that I saw profiled here for the first time.
Oh the Fulcy movie.
Oh no, no, no, I'm sorry, not no, from Beyond Beyond. Yeah, yes, okay, yeah, so yeah, they profiled a lot of like sci fi, horror films, anything that had a certain amount of gore or nastiness to it. I don't again, I don't think it lasted very long, but it was introduced at a time when I was watching any and everything that was on Comedy Central.
Yeah. I never saw this one. I just found out now where quality Kill comes from. I felt like you were quoting something but I'd never asked.
Yeah, yeah, these two. I believe Fitzpatrick, I believe he passed in recent years, but Buzz Buzz Kilman is still around. I think he's like a Chicago radio guy. So yeah, anyway, look it up. You can probably find these episodes on YouTube or something.
Okay, we got another response to our episode on sand. This is from Tyrone. Tyrone says, maybe God is telling me to listen to more podcasts. I never listened to podcasts. I saw your podcast on Netflix yesterday May thirteenth, twenty twenty six, and clicked play because the name of your podcast was the perfect bait. We baited you.
Yeah, Connell did it again with that one.
For the first ten minutes, I could not believe I was listening to a discussion about sand and had not left the show. When that episode on sand ended, I had learned a few amazing things, indeed about the strength of sand. Fast forward to today, May fourteenth, twenty twenty six. One day later, for no reason at all, I stopped by an area library I never visited before, and in their books for Sale section, I saw a Grain of Sand by doctor Gary Greenberg, and all I can say
is it will blow your mind. The data and vivid photos are jaw dropping. Best one dollar I have ever spent. After reading it, you may be tempted to do a Sand part two podcast. Good podcast eight out of ten Good Day series. All right, Well, thank you so much. I did look up this book after your recommendation. So Gary Greenberg, he's got a website you can read about him.
He is originally a PhD biologist who it seems many decades ago sort of switched to specializing in microscopy and microphotography. So he has a lot of I think, like public work and books and art and stuff that is just like really close up photos of extremely tiny things, and he does like three D light microscopy. So according to his author bio, I thought this detail was good.
Quote.
His striking images of human pancreatic cancer cells were repurposed as the surface of Krypton in the first Superman movie in nineteen seventy eight movie. I couldn't find a shot of what this was, so I'm gonna have to go back and watch that movie and figure out what special
effects shot this is. But you may actually have seen before, Like I looked at some of the pictures of grains of sand that I think come from this book that Tyrone recommended again that's called a Grain of Sand by Gary Greenberg, and these pictures looked really familiar to me. I feel like maybe I've seen these images on the internet before, but they are extreme close ups of grains
of sand. And when you zoom in and see obviously sand in different parts of the worldferent places has different constituents, you know, different types of little fragments of of you know, minerals make it up. But the in some sands you get very interesting little bits of you know, organic remnants, little shells and hard parts of creatures in the ocean.
Uh.
And that's what we've got a lot of in these close ups here. It looks when zoomed in like this, it looks a lot more like a handful of candies than it does sand.
It really does. Yeah, there are a few in particular that looks like the sort of hard candies that you know, your great aunt or uncle might have had in a it congealed together in a jar in their dining room.
Yeah. Yeah, I had a jar like that in my family, not my house, an extended family house. I remember, the hard candy jar.
Yeah. Yeah, it definitely looks like that.
Mostly to be looked at though. Yeah, but anyway, Yeah, thanks again, Tyrone.
All right, let's see what else we have here. This next one, Yeah, this one comes from Taylor. This one has to do with fulgarites. Examples of fulgarites in fantasy media.
Yeah. Oh, and we talked about this in the sand episode, because fulgarite is when it's this natural formation you get when lightning hits sand and instantly melts it, forming this hollow glass tube that will usually be smooth on the inside and rough on the outside.
So yeah, this is this you as we were discussing in the podcast, it's like, you know, this is a great this is great fodder for science fiction or fantasy, you know, be it. You know the results of wizard battles or Dragon's Breath, and we encourage everyone to write in if you had an example. So that's what this is, answering your request for examples of fulgarites in fantasy media.
I draw your attention to Monster Hunter. Wild's one of the most recent installments in the popular Monster Hunter RPG series. The series has a heavy focus on ecology and the relationships of its settings peoples with huge monstrous fun. Joe, have you played these games?
No, I know nothing about them.
I have seen, you know, the little thumbnails for them, and I believe our former co host, Christian play that played this and was a fan. I remember him talking it up and we may have some friends in common that we're also really into it, but I never I have not myself played it, but here it's great.
Just based on the description, I'm picturing some somewhere between the Witcher and Pokemon.
I guess that sounds about right. Yeah, my understanding. It is kind of like an action RPG, right, so it's not like turn based. You're out there in the wilds. Folks can write in if they have further details they want to share about the games, but this email continues. Fulger Rites play an important role in the first region the player explores in Monster Hunter Wilds, the Windward Planes.
This desert ecosystem is marked by massive folg right structures, created both by the severe thunderstorm thunderstorms endemic to the and by massive lightning channeling wyns. The region's apex predator, a wyvern species called red aalh, presumably coats the leading edges of its wings in sand and electrifies them to turn its wing edges into shimmering blades of glass. WHOA, all right, so this is not only fulgarites, but like fulgarite tool use by magical beingslg.
Fulgarite wing armor blades like swords and armor at the same time.
Yeah, yeah, they really ran with it. I didn't even anticipate like this. This kind of invocation of Fulgrides redw is often preceded by the tinkling sound of the wind rustling the fulgarite on its scales when it's prey. Here, the sound they attempt to flee. The indigenous human population of the Windward Planes have learned to exploit this signal by collecting shed crystals of fulgarite from ray Now and
stringing them into wind chimes. The tinkling wind chimes ward other monsters away from their sheltered settlements in the region's canyons. Hope this is the sort of thing you were looking for. The Monster Hunter franchise is really great and incorporating interesting bits of natural science into their creature designs and fantasy storytelling.
I've attached some pictures of ray Dow, the Windward Planes fulgar Rides, which are so large the player traverses them in three dimensional labyrinths, and the Windward Planes village adorned with fulgar Ride windshimes. As ever, thank you for producing there's wonderful, thoughtful pieces and turning me on to so many great weird films.
All the best, Taylor, Thank you, Taylor. So I'm looking at these screenshots now I see something that looks kind of like a like a you know, gore On village sort of design, with the rocks and the glass pieces hanging from the ropes. I guess that's the fulgarites collected by the people in this game universe. And then we see the branching things that I initially thought were roots, but okay, yeah, these are like giant fulgarites that the
character wanders through. And then there's a big old monster that yes has dragon wing, and then at the edges of the wings there are these massive shards of glass that I guess the creature has made with some electricity.
Yeah. Yeah, cool monster design. And I can already tell this guy's got to be pretty frustrating to battle, though. I guess they said they said it's the first zone that you encounter, so maybe not that difficult. But sometimes the first level boss can be pretty challenging.
I yeah, I think that often happens, doesn't it Like sometimes the first boss in the game is harder than all the others.
Yeah, I feel and often is the case that the final boss is kind of a letdown. There have been plenty of games I've played where I get to the end it's like, oh, that's the boss, or oh, there's not really a boss, just kind of fighting a an array of enemies you encountered earlier.
This doesn't really count because pretty much the whole thing's hard all the way through. But I remember when I tried to play Elden Ring before I realized like I don't have time for this game. I tried to do it, and you just sort of come out into the world and then like the first thing you run into is something that you absolutely cannot but you just have to
go around it. It will destroy you. This big golden guy on a horse who just beats you down or I don't know, maybe if people who are good at video games can beat it, but but I felt like it's almost trying to teach you something there, like you know, you just have to run away from some things at least at whatever level you are. Okay, you good if I do this message from David about the thing before the beginning.
Yeah, yeah. Tying into another multi part series that we've we've been airing in recent weeks.
Right, So, this was a series about creation narratives, and specifically about in creation narratives, what is described as the way things are before the world is created or ordered. And that's a kind of surprise to some people because sometimes people think that creation narratives tend to be about the initial making of the universe out of nothing. Most of the creation narratives that you can find are not like that. They're actually like orderings and furnishings of pre
existing universes. So this comes from David. David says dear Robin Joe. I was listening to your episode on Things before the Beginning. I had heard before your episode about the better translation of the start of the Book of Genesis as quote, God began separating. Yeah, so this is one of the things we talked about in the episode.
The creation narrative in the Book of Genesis is often misunderstood as a creation ex nihilo, a creation of the world out of nothing, but most translators now agree that the better way of understanding what the story is trying to say is that a sort of dark, chaotic world of waters already existed at the beginning of the story, and then God begins to separate things and bring things into that world, brings in light brings in creatures and separates the waters and the earth and stuff like that.
David goes on to say, but your discussion of the translation reminded me of an encounter I had back when I was in college. I don't remember how it started, hmm, self referential problem, but while I was walking back from a class, I entered into a conversation with a guy who was clearly a young missionary. Oh yeah, Rob, do you ever have college campus encounters with some preachers who like to hang out on campus?
Ooh yeah, I imagine I did, but I don't have very clear memories of them, but yeah, they were around.
Yeah. I feel like it's a common experience of students walking up to a preacher at their college campus who's yelling things at the students and thinking like, well, I can argue this guy out of whatever he's saying, And then when you start talking to him, you realize like, oh, this guy is really used to talking to people like me all day, and I've never had a conversation like this before. So you just end up kind of feeling
embarrassed and walking away. Anyway, So David says he was upfront about wanting to talk about God, and I was interested enough to engage. After a couple of questions about what I was studying in my religious background, he asked if I agreed that everything in the universe has a cause. Having recently taken an intro to philosophy class, I immediately recognized the start of the first cause argument. I think it originates from Aristotle and was developed into a more
formal argument by Thomas Aquinas. I'm probably going to mangle this, but for listeners who are unaware, the first cause argument is basically that since everything has a cause, the universe itself must have a cause, but the cause for the universe could not have a cause, and thus must be uncaused and eternal, and an uncaused and eternal thing is God. If I make the argument sound wea I will admit that it was more but not very convincing when I read it originally in class, but I now believe it
is significantly gibberish. But back to the story. The missionary asked if I agreed that everything in the universe had a cause, and I said no. He looked completely shocked after ten or fifteen seconds of processing that I had already gone off script from his expected argument. He asked me how that was possible. I explained that I was studying physics and at the quantum level, things just happen randomly. There isn't a cause for a particular atom of uranium
to decay into byproducts. There's just a percentage chance that it does. And moreover, some physics data is best explained by assuming that particles and antiparticles are appearing and self annihilating all the time, So the Big Bang might have been caused by some large, random quantum fluctuation. He said he'd have to look into that, and that was it for him. Conversation attempt tying all the way back to
the episode. First, I think your discussion makes me suspect that the cause of the first cause argument is the improper translation in the beginning God created. If I had known then the translation of God began by separating, I probably would have asked the missionary about that issue as well. And Second, while your discussion focused on mythology, even talking about current cosmology, it is still possible that there was something prior to the Big Bang, even if we don't
know that. Interested in your reactions and comments, and as always, thank you for the great podcast. Regards. David, PS, You've done a couple of Weird House episodes on movies from the sixties, so I will repeat my request for Zardas.
I'll know Zardas is a nineteen seventy four picture, but I think it's fair to say that in many ways it is a product of the sixties. I mean, you can the thirteen sixties, you can make that argument. But in terms of the general request for Czar Does, we probably should just go ahead to Tsardes. At some point here in the past we've kind of I remember, kind of quibbling at one point over like, I don't know about the content ratings on Tzar Does, but I don't
know who cares. We should just do Tzar Does.
Yeah, Sean Connery and the Red diaper with the long braid and the unbelievable it's iconic.
Yeah, yeah, I see referenced all the time. We should just dig in.
But yeah, these are all good points, David. I agree that I, you know, don't want to be disrespectful to anybody's beliefs. But I find the first cause argument very unconvincing. I think it relies on equivocation. It relies on equivocation about what it means for something to have a cause. And then on top of that, I think you can also bring up the idea that some things we observe in reality probably don't have a cause, depending on how you define what a cause is. So, yeah, I think
there are a lot of problems with that argument. And then beyond that, Yeah, I think you raised it. We sort of talked about this in the episode, but I'm glad you explored this in more depth. The idea that many people are out there formulating, like logical and evidence based apologetics arguments for a particular religion based on what is probably a misunderstanding of what is what that religion's creation story is attempting to say. So that's another kind
of contradiction there like that. I don't know how it would affect it. Would the missionary who makes the first cause argument for Christianity stop making the first cause argument if they were convinced that actually the genesis narrative does not say that the universe was created out of nothing. I don't know.
Yeah, all I know is that again, I don't have any specific memories of encountering preacher folk or anything on college campuses, but just the idea of getting into some sort of a a bad faith of philosophical theological discussion of the stranger. Not my comfort zone. I just want no part. I don't want to be wrong, I don't want to be right. I just don't want that conversation.
These are of course, I love these topics, but that's just not the sort of environment where I want to engage with anybody about them.
Well, yeah, I mean, if you talk to somebody who's out making arguments like that in a public space, you know, I don't want to impugne everybody's motives, but I'd say the chances are low that they are ready to have a mutually respectful listening and sharing of ideas. They are performing, they're they're trying to like prove something to onlookers by, you know, they're being rhetorical. They're probably not trying to have a meeting of the minds and see if you make any good points.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, why to dine me first a little bit? You know? Yeah, all right, I'm going to skip on through the mailbag here to something we receive from Claire and Sean. We received this just the other day, and recording this on June first. They say Hello, stuff to blow your mind. I was wondering if you plan to do a little late celebration of the new Boards of Canada release in the form of a Weird House
Cinema episode. They are referring to the new album from Boards of Canada Inferno, which just came out the other day, and I actually just sat and listened to several times through on a flight back from Denver. So I'm very freshly immersed in the album and I'm still sort of working my way through it.
But Roddy, sorry, do you know Claara and Sean, Like, how do they know you so well that this is up your alley?
I me, you know, we've mentioned Boards of Canada on the show before, so I think it's just it's just come up if they you know, they they know me at all from the podcast. They know that I'm a big Boards of Canada fan, but they so they included a quote here. This is, I believe taking taken off of one of the Boards of Canada fan pages, but it refers to a nineteen ninety nine interview with herb magazine RB in which the two individuals who make up
Boards of Canada, Michael Sanderson and Marcus Owen. They each gave a top ten list of films, and it says that the majority of them have been identified. Some such as Ice Core Drilling, remain unknown and have been indicated as such. These are neat lists to look at because they are a mix of very mainstream films and things that are either so obscure that we don't know exactly what they're referring to, but it's neat. Sanderson's list has let's see a few that stand out here. Dark Star
John Carpenter's film is on the list. The Elephant Man makes the list. Those are both fascinating picks. And then as far as Marcus Owen's top ten includes let's see the Invention of Destruction, which I believe refers to the Invention for Destruction which we have discussed on Weird House Cinema.
It includes Alice, which I you know, I believe must be the the John Smickmeyer Alice that has also been covered on Weird House Cinema, but then also The Andromeda String, Jesus Christ, Superstar, Capricorn I, and The Wizard of Oz.
Invention for Destruction is definitely one of my favorite movies we've done on weird house, and I can see why. I don't know that much about the Boards of Canada creators, but it fits with the sound of their music for me.
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there's I think overall less known about them compared to a lot of other musicians. They're not I mean, they're not going to say they're completely secretive, like there are things that are known about them. But you know, the vibe I generally get when I read about Boards of Canada is that they prefer to be a little a little further back and then the material, the music is in the forefront. And yeah, I'm I'm
I'm really enjoying Inferno so far. It's delivering on all my expectations for a new Boards of Canada album, which itself I think is a major deal. The last one was twenty thirteen's Tomorrow's Harvest, and in many ways, like that one, I was for a long time I assumed that was the last Boards of Canada album. I you know, there wasn't a lot of information out there that was that that indicated that there was going to be another one.
And it also kind of feels like it came out a lifetime ago because it came out right before a major transition in my life, right before I became a parent, and so a decade later, you know, obviously a lot has changed. And and then here comes this new Boards of Canada album with some I mean people saw it coming. It was, it was predicted, but but I but it wasn't until the album art was released, and then I really like, oh, this is actually happening. There's actually going
to be another Boards of Canada album. And so again it has it has met my expectation, but it's also in unexpected ways. It has also really impressed me. So I don't want to overhype it, but I feel like Tomorrow's Harvest was easily the greatest album of its decade, and I think Inferno shows all the signs of being the best of its own, of our own dark age, heure, yeah, And it's it's an album that feels, you know it, It's not a album that feels exclusively of its time.
I was thinking about this the other day, Like Tomorrow's Harvest and really all the other Boards of Canada albums as well, to me, they feel like a message arriving from outside of our own time, you know. And part of that is obviously the sonic alchemy that they weave with the nostalgic sounds and different bits of media that are woven together in this you know, electronic matrix.
But it sounds like a polaroid photo.
Yeah. Yeah, so it does feel like something of the past, but it has, you know, the futurest part of it as well, So it feels like it is something maybe outside of our linear experience entirely. It feels like prophecy. It feels like music that you don't merely listen to, you kind of integrate with and maybe it listens back to back to you and it knows that you are there.
Yeah. I have not had the opportunity to listen to the new album yet, but I would. I'm very much looking forward to it. I'm not as much of a super fan as you, but I really love Boards of Canada. I listened to Music Has the Right to Children ten million times.
I don't know, amazing album obviously. Yeah, yeah, this one's This one's amazing as well. And I recommend listening to it maybe in a dark room with your eyes shut, you know, in one big, big, long listening session. Just listen to the whole thing beginning to end, and you know, see see where it takes you. So yeah, as far as movies off that list for us to cover, I don't know. Dark Star has been on my list for a long time. I imagine we'll get to that one eventually.
And there are some others on here that could be fun. You know, we could easily discuss the Andromeda Strain or Capricorn One or even the Wizard of Oz.
I say, we got to track down ice Core Drilling. That's my kind of movie.
Ice Core Drilling. Yeah, yeah, what are the the ideas? According to this says unknown thought to be perhaps a National Film Board of Canada film, although the National Film Board of Canada's website makes no mention of any film by this title might be, and they refer to another title like Artich four or something. So again, I think they were, you know, maybe casually answering this question, so they might be referring to this other film. Yeah.
Well, I like the idea that their list of that specifically for the creators of Boards of Canada, that their list of films would include something that sounds like it could be a kind of industry informational film or something that's not meant for the general public. Because that I think they you know, it feels like they could source a lot from those types of media or not, just as they could that they do.
Actually, oh yeah, absolutely.
Anyway, Okay, would you like me to read one of these other ones here? Let's see.
Yeah, what else do we have in the mailbag? We have some weird house cinema messages in particular.
Yeah, we can do. Let's see this one. How about this one from Matt about Star Crash. Oh yes, Star Crash Memories from an old guy. Matt says, Hi, Robert and Joe, I really enjoyed your recent episode on Star Crash, a movie that made a big impression on me, both good and bad when it came out. Imagine being an eleven year old science fiction fan in nineteen seventy seven
and having your whole world rocked by Star Wars. Also, imagine that there was no way to see Star Wars after its theatrical run, So anything even vaguely related to a movie set in space is going to be on your radar, and you'd beg your parents, grandparents, or any adult who'd listen to take you to see that movie. Lastly,
imagine sitting in a theater and watching Star Crash. The mood of the audience went from excitement to disappointment pretty quickly, but the constant costume changes and the always wonderful Carolyn Monroe kept the interest up, and once there was an acceptance of the goofiness embedded in every frame, my friends and I had a mildly entertaining afternoon. Unexpectedly, though, a
Star Crash stuck with us. Constant discussions of the movie's shortfalls led to an appreciation of bad or weird movies and the fun that could be had in staying up late to watch some forgotten gem on TV. This coincided with the release of the Medved Brothers books, The Golden Turkey Awards, and The Fifty Worst Movies of All Time,
so we were hooked. Once video rentals became a thing, a whole world of weird and wonderful movies opened up, and I remember many incredible nights with friends watching some awful movie and laughing so hard I could hardly breathe. Fast forward to now, in my original attitude to Star Crash has changed. I love the energy and the throw it all at the wall and see what sticks attitude
of the filmmakers. I love the colorful stars that look like Christmas decorations, the ship models with obvious sprus and spray cand lids glued to them, and the bizarre dialogue that throws in crazy ideas but never sees them through. I hope one day to get my well worn Star Crash DVD signed by Carolyn Monroe or David Hasselhoff or both. Thanks for the podcast. A show that combines interesting facts with a weekly weird movie was always going to be
right up my right up my alley. But the two of you always find the right tone to hit, whether you're discussing hard science, interesting culture, or a bizarre Italian space movie with a Texan robot and a spaceship fist. Cheers Matt. Well, thank you, Matt. That makes me feel wonderful.
Yeah yeah, yeah, that's right in there. And that then diagram that we've created of interest.
Yeah all right.
This next one comes to us from Karen. Karen says, hey, w HC, dudes, I didn't see Brother from Another Planet on your letterbox list, and it's a wonderful movie. Consider it if you're ever at a loss. By the way, Karen is referring to our profile on letterbox dot com. You can look us up there. We're a weird house. We have a list of all the movies we've covered over the years there, so you can see what we've covered and sometimes you get a peek ahead at what
we're covering next. But indeed, Brother from Another Planet it is not on the list because we have not covered it. Karen continues, love your show. Been listening to stuff to blow your mind and offshoots forever. Thanks for exposing me to schlock and sometimes not schlock that I never would have seen if not for you, except Forbidden Planet, which has been my fave since I first saw it and was thrilled that you did anp on it. Any thanks for the infotainment, Karen.
Well, thank you very much. Karen. Yeah, Brother from Another Planet directed by John Sales. I've hit that on my list for a long time. I've never seen it, but I've heard it's great.
Yeah, yeah that that has also been on my list for a while, and I don't know that might be might be one that we cover later this month there, Yeah, one of the Friday slots coming up. I'm thinking of possibly picking Spaces the place, but Brother from Another Planet also strong contender. And then Finally, I'm going to include one message here from our discord server. If you would like to join our discord server, just email us. We're going to throw that email out here in a minute.
Email lists will send you a link to the discord. It's a much smaller, i think, segment of the listener base, but you know, kind of keep it small because it stays cozy that way. But anyone is free to join. Matt says here, apparently there is a mobile armor, like a mobile suit, not human shaped, in the Gundam universe. This is this is the Bandai Namco series. This is a you know, Gundam. So if you know what a
Gundam is, you know what I'm talking about. If not, look it up and then you it'll be like, oh, that's a Gundam, I know what that is. But Matt says that there is there's a particular mobile armor in the Gundam universe called a Gromlin. And he says maybe someone at Bandai at Namco is a fan of eighties and nineties Grimlins copycat movies. He includes a picture here and I've included this for you to look at.
Joe.
Folks out there, you can look up Gundam Gromlin, and you will see this as well. It's, as Matt points out, a bizarre design with one leg and a weird kind of like arm on a wire. So it's a very strange looking like anime. It looks like a spaceship, but it is a combat suit of some sort.
I interpreted this as two legs sort of twisted together and a head on a long, thin neck, so it looks to me kind of like a green metal flamingo.
Yeah, it looks like a chicken leg to me. Yeah, it's kind of like the Bobba Yaga's House. But make it sci fi, make it anime. So this was fun.
If you've listened to us on Weird House Cinema before, you know that when we say Gromlin, we're talking about any kind of cinematic creature that occurs in the wake of nineteen eighty four's Grimlins, regardless of comparative effects slash puppetry quality, though generally it's going to be of poorer equality, thus invoking the idea of subpark Grimlins, Grimlins at home, or of course, generic off brand grimlins that might be called Gromlins.
Right, Hobgoblins, munchies, that sort of thing.
Yeah, that sort of thing. But even in like our discussion of Jim Henson's Storyteller, that's what we're talking about, the Soldier and death, some great devils in there, and we were talking I think we discussed whether or not these were Gromlins. There's some Gromlin energy to them, although they were obviously made by puppetry masters.
Good Gromlins, Good Gromlins.
Yeah, I mean, I love all Gromlins. They're they're they're all beloved in my eyes. But that's what we were talking about when we talk about with talk about Gromlins. I think the usage in the Gundam universe definitely predates, so I was looking into it a little. I think the Gromlin sued here is from the late nineties, so they were definitely using it before we were using it.
I was also looking around to see why who else is using the word Gromlin, And apparently it's the name of a fictional English town in the music of the band love Joy. Not really familiar with this band, I think they were they were formed and in recent years, the last twenty years at any rate, but there's some sort of fictional town they've created named Gromlin. I like that idea as well.
Never heard of that. But are are there Gromlins in the town of Gromlin.
I don't know anything about it, but I want to go to there, much like the town of Millbag. I also also want to go visit Nilboch.
This Gromlin spelled backwards, mil Milmore, neil Moore.
Neil More works. Yeah, that's if you're creating some sort of fiction out there and you need a town name, go with nil Moore. Just spell Gromlin and then do it backwards. You'll have a clearer idea of what you're working with. Here. All right, we're gonna go ahead and close the mail bag here, but I mean, there was a lot we didn't get to in this edition. We'll be back with another edition at least next month.
We'll be back.
We generally do about one of these a month, but there there's no shortage of listener mails for us to discuss. We generally don't have time to respond one on one when people write in, but rest assured we read it all, we sort through it all, and then of course we don't have time to bring it all up on the show.
But we greatly appreciate it when you take the time to write in about any and everything, be it a little field reporting on a particular topic, or recommendations for the future, you know, corrections, whatever the case may be, we are happy to hear from you. Just a reminder. The Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast, with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays,
chort form ofpisodes on Wednesdays and on Fridays. That's when we set aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. 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 stufft Blow your Mind dot com.
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.