Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind listener Mail. My name is Robert.
Lamb and I am Joe McCormick, and today we are bringing you some messages from the Stuff to Blow your Mind email address. If you're a fan of the show and you have never gotten in touch before, you can do so at any time, for any reason at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. We give the address out at the end of every episode, but we like to throw it at the top of listener mail episodes just to remind people that, yes, you can
write about whatever you want. Most of the time we get messages with people trying to add something interesting, maybe from their own personal experience or from their own independent research about a topic we've talked about on the show. But really, whatever you want is fair game. Contact at stuff to Blow Yourmind dot com.
That's right. If you have recommendations for the future, write in HI. If you just want to share a picture of your pet, that is also fair game, especially if we've covered that animal recently on the show, and also if you want to join the discord server. Sometimes we read some messages from the discord server in these episodes. Use that email address to get in touch with us, and we'll shoot you the link so that you can join us. And really those are the best ways to
get in touch with us. We are on some of the socials, and if you message us through the socials, there's a chance that message will make it to us. But honestly, we don't tend those gardens as well as we once did, so the best way is always going to be that email address.
That's right, Let's see Rob, you good if we kick things off with some messages about our series on Kartchner Caverns.
Yeah, let's do it.
Kartchner Caverns is a cave system in Arizona that Rob you visited earlier this year with your family, and then we did some episodes on it about its native bat populations and the discovery and conservation history of it. So that was an interesting topic and a lot of people had thoughts Cartchner Caverns. So I'm going to do this first message from Angela subject Caverns. Hey guys, longtime listener,
love the show, Thanks for such interesting topics. Just finish listening to the first part of your Kartchner caverns episode, Man, did that bring back memories? For context? I don't like enclosed spaces. I really really don't like being stuck in the dark. But I'm also a let's go it might be fun kind of person I can identify. With that combination of personality traits anxious but also game, it makes for a lot of stressful situations. So Angela says we
were visiting. We were in Kentucky visiting Angela and she doesn't say who. I guess friends or family. We were in Kentucky visiting. As we were driving, we noticed a sign for caverns. I made the joke that I'd rather go to a tavern.
Okay to this story is starting off like a horror movie, but yeah, let's continue and see where it goes.
Yeah, preferring taverns to caverns right. Regardless, my traveling companions really wanted to go, so I thought, sure, this will be interesting. As we waited for the tour to begin, I started putting my mind at ease, remembering that cute Atari spilunking game and trying to remember it's what I'm sure we're equally adorable sounds. I had to look this up because I've never played this game, but rob I dug up a video of some gameplay and I attached a screenshot in the outline you can look at here.
So it's one of these games where you know the pixel quality is very it's you know, it looks like some scuzz on the screen. So you play as a little light blue wad of pixels exploring a cave and there are ladders you can climb, and it looks like ropes or vines or something you can swing from. The sounds are very cute, as Angela remembered. It makes that classic little Lodix bittoon sound when you pick up a power up. But also I thought this game was funny
because it's not like a just biological cave entities. There are ghosts. There are ghosts that float towards you, and I think you can shoot the ghosts with a gun or with something. There's like a projectile you put out. Eventually it makes the ghosts disappear. But the other thing about it that was funny is it keeps looping. The first phrase of the mysterio so piscato. This is a classic piece of music you might recognize from like old
silent movie or not silent movies, old movies. Whenever the villain appears done dune dund dun dun dun dun dun.
Okay, and then that translates, I believe to mysterious pizza cat. Right, that's exactly what. Okay?
Yeah, so anyway, this imagine, this that we've just described is what our claustrophobe Angela is running through her brain for comfort. But the next she says, we were helped into this little boat. Oh, interesting, a boat, sweet mother of God. As we started entering the cave, we were instructed to lower our heads since it had rained and the water level was high. If you're sitting down now, put your ear against your knee. That was my current situation.
I could feel the rock ceiling against my puffy jacket. This must have been the longest twelve seconds of my life. We got off the boat and continued on foot. Man, this just keeps getting rougher and rougher, like tight space is but also water. Suffice to say the rest of the tour was a piece of cake. The darkness, the enclosed space is the creepy prehistoric atmosphere, the eerie silence. The bats were their bats. I don't even remember, but
what do you know, I actually enjoyed it. From time to time I would get waves of why as I remembered I was underground, But altogether, I'm glad I got to experience it, and I particularly I remember the guide addressing not disturbing the ecosystem, which was an interesting reminder that as far as nature is concerned, we were not really meant to be there. We'll save episode two for another day,
Smiley face. Thanks for the cool show, Angela. Now, Angela doesn't say exactly what this cave was or where it was, except that it was in the state of Kentucky. But based on her description, I did some googling and I feel pretty confident that the cave she's talking about was the is the Lost River Cave in Bowling Green, Kentucky. So this is a cave that actually does have boat tours.
And I watched like a video somebody made of going through the tour of this cave, and it does begin like one of the first things is you get in a boat and you have to go under this low rock ceiling passage, and the guide at this part of the tour it says, you know, you're not allowed to touch the rocks and the rest of the cave. This is the one place where you can touch the ceiling because it's kind of unavoidable, So encourage people to just
like put their hands up up and touch it. I guess the water was not as high in the video I was watching as when Angela described it.
Yeah, I never visited that particular Kentucky cave. I think I went to a different one when I was a kid, and I did once tour I think some old salt mines in Germany on like a high school trip where you had to get in a boat, but the ceiling was not that close. It was a little bit roomier, again being if memory serves, a mining operation as opposed to a naturally formed cavern.
So there's a funny thing about the Lost River Cave if this is in fact the one that Angela is talking about, and I'm pretty sure it is, because in this case, it's funny that you say you would rather go to a tavern than a cavern. The Lost River Cave once literally was basically a tavern, not in the you know, not in the tavern in sense of like dungeons and dragons. Tavern but it was a place to drink,
party and get down. So I was reading about this in a little history article by Teelia Butler for w NKY, Kentucky. According to local lore, during the Prohibition era, this cave was used for smuggling liquor, but by the nineteen thirties it had become one of the most famous night clubs in the country, called the Cavern Nightclub. The article calls it quote the coolest place to be both above and
below ground. And there's a double meaning of coolest place there because Billboard magazine called it the only air conditioned nightclub in the United States. This is because of the natural temperature control offered by the cave. Cave air tends to be pretty stable and temperature year round, usually somewhere around the upper fifties fahrenheit. The article goes on to describe a bit of its history, saying, quote, it was
Jimmy Stewart's publicity. Now that's not Jimmy Stewart, James. That's not the actor, not the guy from Vertigo in rear window. This is different a bowling green Jimmy Stewart. Quote. It was Jimmy Stewart's publicity. The Bowling Green, businessman who owned the club from nineteen thirty four to nineteen forty nine. That turned the club into a swinging place. Throughout the big band jazz era of the nineteen forties, many famous
musicians and singers performed at the Cavern Nightclub. Big names like Dinah Shore and Francis Craig with his NBC Orchestra could be heard from the Cave's bandstand. In those days, club partygoers could purchase a deluxe ice bowl with whiskey hidden inside for just two dollars. Oh wow. As so, the article goes on to describe how eventually the club declined in popularity, in part, I think because they built
a new highway system. That meant a lot of the traffic that used to go near it wasn't passing by as much anymore. So there was that also just changes in you like, musical taste. Jazz clubs weren't as popular by the nineteen sixties. So if you go there today, you can still see the bar and stage area, and I think it may sometimes to be used for events today, but but yeah, a lot of it's just this like cave nature boat tour sort of thing.
Now, speaking of caves used for music up in Grundy County, Tennessee. Yeah, you've got the caverns, Joe. Have you ever been to a show there?
I have, Yeah, I have.
What was it like?
I do not want to speak ill of the musician I saw there. It was actually it was. I could tell it was a great place to see a show. But the show I saw was not great. I actually fell asleep.
Sometimes that's good. It depends what you're seeing, Like if you're seeing, you know, particularly ambient group, you know sometimes I mean not off a little bit, and that's fine.
It wasn't ambient. It was like it was like a bluegrass show, and I forget it. I mean, I like bluegrass music, but it was just not my favorite artist. It was rather a somnolent experience experience. But yeah, but I would like to go back there someday to yeah, see something I'm more jazzed about.
Jazz? Yeah, jazz, which would brand of jazz would be appropriate for a cavern environment?
I don't know. I guess Dinah Shore is not playing anymore.
All right, let's see what's next in the old mail bag. This one comes to us from Bill. Bill writes Robin Joe, thank you for entertaining and educating me for close to a decade. Now. I was so glad to hear you take on Cartooner Caverns a wonderful place. I visited it once many years ago and was just thinking about returning after recently checking out Carlsbad Caverns highly recommended, and feeling
the draw back to my caving days. Lehman Caves in Great Basin National Park is also phenomenal, with unique formations called shields that are a bit of a mystery now.
In Bill's email, he includes a link out to some National Park's page information about these shield formations in Lehman Caves. Rob, I've just got a picture for you to look at here. Are these are pretty interesting? You know what they look like? They look like gigantic oyster mushrooms.
They do giant stone mushrooms. Yeah, all right. Well Bill continues here talking about the Lanmon Caves. Here, he says the area has both wild caves, minimal human trace and a great user friendly tour where their motto one hundred years ago was if you can break it, you can take it.
Oh.
No, obviously not great considering where a cave conservation has gone, but that certainly tracks with what happened with a lot of these early show caves. He continues, as for Joe's request of inside the mind of a cave or Yes, exploring a new canyon or cave where humans may never have been is quite the attraction. In both caving and canyoneering, I have had moments where I needed to do the exhale trick that Robert mentioned in order to continue through
tight spots. As you both stated, please everyone be careful out there. As I often say in guiding, one must have three levels of trust in these sorts of adventures. Trust in yourself and your abilities, trust in your partners, and trust in your gear. I like to think of slot canyoneering as caving with a sun roof, a great way to explore the skinnies without the full commitment of spelunking.
If you ever wish to experience anything involving via Ferrata canyoneering, or various levels of adventure in the Desert's southwest, hit me up Bill.
Well, thank you.
Bill.
By the way, I just wanted to add one more note about the shield cave formations that Bill was talking about. In that is the Lehman Caves in Great Basin National Park. So the page that Bill linked to is a National Park's information page and it's got a big picture of the one that's called the parachute formation in Lemon Caves. And much like some of the formations we were talking about in the Carshenter Caverns episode, apparently the exactly how
the shield formations come together is not fully understood. I think there are some leading ideas, but it's not fully settled. And the page says, quote, although cave shield formation is still puzzling, it's hypothesized that cave shields form as extensions of joints or cracks in the floor, wall and ceiling.
So the idea is that you've got hydrostatic pressure acting on the calcium or calcite rich water that is inside the stone that surrounds the cave, and then the water kind of bleeds out at these joints or these cracks in the walls and floor, and then of course the same process that we talked about in those episodes happens. You know, it loses carbon dioxide and precipitite precipitates calcite.
Fascinating. And again, you know, as we discussed in that episode. I think it's just so amazing that we have these cave environments and these amazing formations and mysteries remain regarding how these things have formed. You know, we think it's easy to make the mistake of thinking, well, it's literally set in stone, it's you know, it's it's there. We can figure it out. But we're not completely sure on
some of these things. And again, especially it's especially exciting with these living caves where the rock is still forming and reforming, breaking, repairing itself and so forth. It's almost like a living thing.
All Right, are you cool if I do this message from Chris?
Yeah, let's have it.
Subject line this is the way in This email begins with an epigraph, classy nice quote. Presently they were under the shadow, and here in the midst of it they saw the opening of a cave. This is the way in, said Gollum softly. I think this is from when galam is leading Sam and Frodo into she Loob's Layer. And which book is that? Is that? A Two Towers or Return of the King.
Oh, I'm always a little shaky on this because and then I also can't remember how this shuffle thing around in the film versions.
Yeah, I think they put if I'm remembering correctly, this might happen in the book The Two Towers, but they put it in the movie Return of the King.
M okay, yeah that would make sense.
Yeah, Tolkien fans correct me if I'm wrong, and I know you will anyway. This message goes on. Good day, Robert, Joe and JJ writing today in response to your excellent episodes on Carchner Caverns Listen slash watched with my kids on Netflix. Side note, they are very happy to put a face with the voice after all the time listening with me. They would like you to know that you both look way different than they thought crying laughing emoji. Yeah.
I mean I would be surprised at this point if anyone were to say you look exactly as we imagined.
As a family. We have visited caves together before in Kentucky at Mammoth Cave where we saw Helick Tights and Cave Popcorn, and Missouri at Mirramac Caves and Onondoga Cave. While all are unique in their own way. Your discussion about how the two sorry the Two Cavers weighed their options for Cartchner Caverns really struck me as interesting in
regards to the two Missouri caves I mentioned. On one hand, you have Merrimac Caves, which, if not the most has to be up there as the most commercialized cave in the world as if as if you have driven anywhere in the Midwest, you may have seen billboards for it noting its location right off Route sixty six. On the other hand, you have the Onondoga Cave, which has a long history of land disputes and ownership changes, but has been managed as a Missouri State park since nineteen eighty two.
For my money, I prefer Onondoga and highly recommend a visit if able. It has some wonderful and unique features, such as the lily pad room sands frogs. Though, thanks as always for your episodes Chris and then Rob for you to look at in the outline pulled in some pictures of the lily pad room on Endoga Cave. That is beautiful, quite beautiful. So it has a you know, I don't know what you call this in a cave, like a lake or a pond inside the cave and
looks like some standing water. And then there are these formations that rise just above the surface of the water. And I don't know exactly what you call those are how they're formed, but yeah, they look kind of like lily pads floating on the surface.
Very cool. Yeah, all right, well, I appreciate that field report and the epigraph. Yeah, very classy. All right, Let's see what else do we have in here in the old male bag. Let's see, all right, This next one comes to us from Sheldene, subject line cave conservation. She writes, Hey, guys, I hope you're well. I don't know if that's responding to anything in.
Particular is a question mark.
Anyway, As she continues, I wanted to tell you about my admittedly limited experience with cave conservation in South Africa. Probably the most famous tourist caves in South Africa are the Congo Caves in Oatshorn. I think every school kid I know, including my own, do a school tour to Oatshorn to see the crocodiles, ostriches and Kingo caves. When I went, it must have been in nineteen eighty seven, because I was eleven or twelve. Back then, there was
a lot more stage dressing in the caves. In the big cave you enter into first there's a huge formation called the organ pipes, and when I was a kid, they turned off all the lights in the cave and lit up the formation with colored lights and played loud, dramatic organ music. The whole cavern floor had been filled in with clay to make it flat, and they used to hold concerts in there. I remember seeing hundreds of fold up chairs in one area.
What would be your favorite organ song to hear in a cave?
Ro ooh, well, I mean, I guess I would have to say a phanom of the opera music, or I was thinking back to Doctor Five's. I had to look it up, but Mendelssohn seemed to be a favorite of the abominable Doctor Five, so I might put in a request for that.
I could go for a little cave treatment of In the Garden of Eden by Iron Butterfly.
There you go. That's a good one, all right, as she continues as an aside for Joe. As part of this little show, they have a tiny oil nap now electric to give people an idea of how little light that first explorer of the cave had available. It was barely anything in the dark. Going back to that experience in the eighties, I recall the air being moist but not uncomfortable, and that the walls and formations glittered fast.
Farward to nineteen ninety nine, my husband and I went back while on honeymoon, and I was intrigued at how the tour had taken on a more ecological bent and the changes to the caves. They had removed all the unnecessary lights and even pointed out a spot where where black algae had infested a section of the cave wall. This sort of thing. I think we talked about this in our episodes, like this is where human contact can cause this to grow, or certainly naturally occur in contact
via bats. They explained that the lights encourage the growth of the algae, so much like Rob described, the lights switch off. The light switch off automatically to limit this. They also explained how hard it is to remove or kill the algae without damaging the cave. We went back again in twenty fifteen, this time with our kids, and what struck me was the humidity and the dullness of the caves. There's no more glitter on the walls and formations.
They do seem to have managed to control the algae, but I think the damage of thousands of humans is visible in the overwhelming brownness of the caves. Now, there are two other cave systems, imaginatively named can Go two and three, which are off limits to the public. The photos I've seen of them, taken in the seventies are beautiful. The formations are white. Of note is that the Kango caves are still living as well. The formations are still
growing despite the tourism and human damage. I could ramble on for ages, but this email is already quite long. Love you guys, my longtime ear friends. Keep up the great work. Best witches.
Sheldy, Thank you, Sheldy.
Yeah, thanks for writing in. I love hearing about these different caves around the world. They are different, you know. Obviously, they're naturally occurring cave systems everywhere you go. And there are a number of cave systems that are show caves to some degree and are open to the public. So yeah, I really have enjoyed hearing from listeners about this.
Okay, this next message is from David. David says, Hi, Robert and Joe just listen to the first episode about the card Schner Caverns and wanted to share my favorite
cave experience. I'm a French horn player, a player of the French horn, not a French horn player, player of the French horn, and attend as many workshops as I can to stay in touch with other horn players, experience performances of new music for horn and of course for horn, out for the horn, new music for horn, and of course play with all of the new equipment for hornists brought by exhibitors. I've never heard hornists before.
I like them. We know, David, I'm something of a French horn player myself, or I used to be. Really, I was a bad French horn player in high school, but I have you know, I have had my hand in a number of French horns.
Yes, I was a bad trumpet player in middle school.
I was also a bad trumpet. Yeah. I think I probably did not have the determination, But I also don't think I had the lips for these instruments. Looking back on.
It, I'm gonna reflect on my own experiences and say, I think a big problem was I did not practice enough, because it was not very enjoyable to practice a trumpet by myself alone at home, and I got the feeling that other members of the house did not like that either.
So, yeah, that's always one of the challenges with a musical instrument in the house, for sure.
Yeah. Anyway, the message goes on to say, these are usually oh okay, the experiences, the horn related experiences. These are usually regional affairs. But in twenty twenty five, the International Horn Symposium was hosted by James Madison University in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. With it being so close to my home in North Carolina, I had to attend. One of the add on opportunities for symposium attendees was
a tour of the nearby Louay Caverns. This cave system is known for the Great Stalac Pipe organ, a lithophone that produces sound when beaters strikes stalactites and stalagmites of different sizes. We were lucky enough to add some additional music to the space. The group of right around fifty of us horn players brought I wish this email would continue with horn the holy I'm going to say hornists. Fifty of us hornists brought our horns on the tour.
When we reached the cathedral room where the organ keyboard is located, we stopped and performed two pieces. One was written to be premiered on that day in that space, with the specific intention of using the cave itself as a musical tool, incorporating the reverberation of the space. The second was a beautiful arrangement that combined the tune Shenandoah with the with the simple Gifts melody from Copeland's Appalachian Spring.
Both were fitting for the event and location. Fifty horn players make an incredible sound, and that was multiplied by the novelty of playing in such a beautiful and unique space, and of course by the way the space affected the sound. With the event being open to every one of all backgrounds and skill levels, and with us playing after a few hours of driving and walking without a warm up, the performance wasn't spotless, but I'm pretty sure no one
there cared. The pick up nature of a world premiere by a group of people who had never played together until a couple of days beforehand, After just two or three short rehearsals with our music taped to each other's backs since we couldn't bring music stands into the caverns, seemed just right. And then David includes a link to a YouTube video of the performance with some notes about I don't know some self review, I guess. Then David says,
thanks for what you do. I've listened to every episode since sometime in twenty eighteen, and I love getting to nerd out and explore wild topics along with you. Then there's a PS. David says, sorry for the additional email, but recounting this experience made me recall the episode of yours that comes to mind most often when performing with ensembles, usually either very large ensembles due to sheer scope and size, or small chamber ensembles in which all of the musicians
are very comfortable playing with and following one another. Your episode on Commmuda often comes to mind. The more I remember that bit of podcasting, the better I know a rehearsal or show has gone. Oh that's sweet to hear. Yeah, kama Muda being a name that some people coined to describe a unique kind of togetherness emotion.
Was this possibly the here comes the Warm Feels episode from twenty twenty?
Could be that? Yeah?
Yeah, I think that might be the one. It's in the archives, so if anyone wants to look that one up, just go to wherever you get your audio podcasts and you can dig it out of the earth there.
Yeah. Oh, and I didn't mention this, but David I did click through. I watched some of the video with the music, and it did sound really lovely. I liked the original composition in the first half with the kind of like a mounting overlapping sounding of the different horns, and I thought it was very beautiful. Yeah.
Interesting. Yeah. Horn music is not the first thing that I would think about concerning music in the caves. I don't know. I guess I would want it. Just seems like I would want something very minimal because I just imagine things is getting very loud, very quickly in such an enclosed space. But maybe part of this is just my imagination.
I hear drums, drums and the TV. Yeah, okay, Rob, you want to do some responses to our series on the Suarro Cactus.
Sure? Yeah. This one comes to us from Alex's title Suarro song. Hey dudes, first time, long time. Just started listening to the episode on the Suaro Cactus, and I thought, for sure you guys would mention the song Ain't No Soarro in Texas by the inimitable Reverend Horton Heat. When I heard Joe start to introduce a song that mentions the cactus. I thought for sure that was what was coming.
The song is an alarmingly app counterpoint to You Guys's episode discussing the actual habitat of the species and it's hyperbolic association with all arid landscapes. The song is also a complete bop and is indispensable if you're going to be drinking cold beers on a hot day, and I hope it would serve to acquaint the show with the Honorable Reverend Horton Heat as a bestion of science and culture in America. Huge fan love Weird House. You guys are the best.
Thank you, Alex. I was not familiar with this song. I looked it up.
It is.
It's a bop. I like it. Yeah. So the main theme of the song is about how in all the movies, like there's a line that says Hollywood and misinformed artists made the swarro a Texas icon, but the souaro only grows in Arizona, where people got them out on their lawn. I don't know. It sounds more artful actually when he sings it than when I just phrased it there. But the chorus of the song goes, there ain't no souarro
in Texas. It's not the kind of cactus we got, But somehow we're stuck with this image and changing it is going to take a lot. Folks in Mexico and Arizona are probably glad that I've cleared the air. There ain't no soarro in Texas, but we've sure got a lot of prickly pair.
Yeah. I don't know that I had heard this song before. I occasionally will hear the revent horton heat and like, if I'm listening to like a radio station of psychobilly, you know it's They're kind of a mainstay of psychobilly. I'm to understand, but I don't. But largely I don't really know myself around the genre. I just have sometimes put it on in the background.
Yeah, okay. This next message is from Tyler. Tyler says, hey you pals, I'm just starting the first episode on the Souarro, and Joe mentions he thought they looked like an antenna. Well, depending on where you are, the souarro you are looking at might be an antenna. A lot of cell phone towers in southern Arizona are made to look like souarrows. This would be hilarious if they put souarrow cell phone towers in Texas. Yeah, just keep keep
the insult going, presumably to disguise an iesore. But most of the towers aren't fooling anyone and are more of a distraction than an actual tower would be.
I can absolutely back those up from my time spent in Arizona. But then the rest of my time spent in Georgia. You know, we of course have the big fake cell towers that are disguised as trees as well, but are not fooling anyone. So this just seems to be a standard tactic. I don't know what they what else they disguise them as in other parts of the world.
They should just go whole hal Actually, not just Texas, they should do suarrow cell towers nationwide. Why not towers in Vermont? There you go.
Nobody's believing it anyway. Just make it look like some sort of a crazy roadside attraction.
The email goes on, also regarding the story about the guy that was crushed by a soarrow. This is the guy who was crushed by a soarro after shooting it. He shot it with a shotgun and then it fell on him and killed him. This was in the nineteen eighties. Tyler says. The irony of the story is that he set out to destroy a protected species that ultimately was his undoing. It is illegal to remove or damage a soorrow,
even on your own property. You need a permit, and most of the time they will try to relocate it rather than cut it down. This process can be costly and dangerous. As noted in the story, soorro sections are very heavy and prone to breaking off. If you haven't come across crested soarrows in your research, I suggest looking them up. They're pretty neat. I think the prevailing theory
for why they happen is due to frost damage. Well, Tyler, as you probably know now, in the later parts of that series, we did get into crested souarros, so I hope you enjoyed that segment. But finally, Tyler says, thanks for all the years of edge youtainment. Ooh, what an accusation, Tyler. And then there's a ps hay pals again. Forgot to
mention I am born and raised in Tucson. Many of the old Westerns you referenced the Westerns that wherever they are set in the American West, they have souarros in them. Tyler says many of them were filmed just to the west in a little studio that is now a theme part called Old Tucson Studios. If you had any questions about souarros or the Sonoran Desert Desert area, I'd be happy to answer them to the best of my ability. Tyler, Thank you, Tyler.
Awesome. As always, we appreciate the field reports. Very good, very good. All right, here's another one. This one comes to us from Chris. Subject line malic acid. Chris says, I've never heard of malic acid before, but I listened to Suaro Part two and saw this TikTok on the same day. It is not my content, and I'm not expecting you to share anything on the show, but I found this an interesting extra note on the malic acid powder you mentioned in the episode. It's probably much more
widely used than any of us know or expected. Love the show and you guys, and looking forward to many more, Chris. So.
Chris includes a link to a video along with the email, and yeah, this is picking up on in our discussion about crasulation. Acid metabolism in the souaro cactus. That it involves the use of this compound called malic acid. That we were talking about its use in plant metabolism, but then also talking about how it's actually a very familiar flavor to most listeners, that it's part of what gives
the distinctive flavor of tartness in apples. I think the name of malic acid comes from like apple acid, but it's in tons of different plants. A lot of sour flavors and fruits you recognize are going to be a form of malic acid, but there are other acid compounds and fruits as well. You've got citric acid and citric
citrus fruits and so on. But we also talk in a funny twist about how some salt and vinegar potato chips he used malic acid powder as one of the tart components, which is funny because you would think they
would use a vinegar flavor, but actually it's a different acid. Anyway, in this video, it is a it's a TikTok video of a candy maker account called at Jeff's Candy Shop, and so this guy in the video says he's trying to make a hard candy similar to and I don't know if I think maybe it's a now discontinued candy called Altoid's Orange Sours. You ever have these?
Rub I don't know that I did that I did, But certainly, when it comes to hard candies, the orange flavored ones have always been my preference, even if I'm even if I'm just going this flavor in general, if I'm going for like a tongs, I'm going to go for the orange ones first.
I like orange tew.
Yeah, yeah, even if it just tastes like chalk, if it's orange shok.
Orange gatorade. So anyway, in this video, the guy boils the sugar syrup and he pours it out on a table. It starts to cool and thicken up, and as it's doing that, he folds in first citric acid powder for one sour element, and then he keeps folding it to mix it all around inside the candy. Then he stretches it out on a candy hook to incorporate air, then runs it through a crank press to stamp it out into these little ball shapes that are going to be
the final shape. And then once all of the little pellet sized candies are cool. The final thing he does is he tosses them inside a container with powdered malic acid. So that's the sour white powder on the outside. So interesting that this sour candy has two different sour flavor elements. It's got citric acid mixed in with the sugar syrup, and then it's got malic acid dusted on the outside.
Fascinating. You know, I had to do a quick search because I don't make as many tiki drinks as I used to, but I was looking around online. I know that there's some online recipes that call for malic acid. But I also looked in my Beech bumb Berry app which has all the classic recipes, and I did do just a quick search here for malik and nothing came up. So I presume this is more of a relatively modern use of an ingredient antique recipes.
I mean, I don't think powdered malic acid is going to be a standard thing in many cooks or mixologist pantries. You know, that's like more of a either an industrial ingredient or maybe for your advanced home molecular gastronomist or so.
That must be a yeah, like gastronomy obbyist and so forth.
Yeah, I mean not like there's anything all that crazy about it. It just doesn't seem like a commonly used ingredient in the home, more so at the industrials.
Yeah, I had never run across it in a recipe before, and I'm always running across things in recipes. Then I go, well, I don't have that what's the substitute for that? But I've never run across that one.
I mean it's kind of like how you know, sodium citrate is something that's going to be in tons of industry really produced foods, but is not going to be in many people's home pantries, right right, Yeah.
All right, let's see we have some more soaro action here, and the subject line here is teenage mutant Ninja Cactus.
Oh just to note that this message is from a listener who gave both a real name, but then also mentioned an alias, and I wasn't sure which one they wanted us to use for the email, So we're just going to say anonymous listener for now.
Right right. We don't want to blow your cover, but one way or the other. So, yeah, this includes an image of the thing we're talking about here. The author rights, Hello again, gentlemen. Just wanted to share a comic drawn in part by my middle school art teacher circa ninety two. Fun stuff. I haven't chimed in for a while. Twenty twenty five was a tough year. Among other things, I lost my dog, I Kabad. I wrote you once about the connection between his name and the arc the Covenant.
But I remain a loyal listener, and I want you to know how much I appreciate you being a part of my life through thick and thin. And after this, he includes a personal message about his intent to hide the Appellation trail, So good luck with that. But yes, this is a comic book, and it is titled Sowarrow So Warrior.
It is a Sowaro textured hero. It looks like Iceman from the X Men. Is Iceman what he's called?
Yeah, Yeah, there's Iceman.
Yeah, Iceman. It looks kind of like Iceman from the X Men, except he's like green and covered in spines.
Yeah he looks Yeah, he also kind of looks he looks like a number of different comic book characters. Whatever, you're sort of like naked bald guy comic book character is you know, be a Vision or any of these sorts of characters. It's this except he's all cactus. So yeah, yeah,
pretty cool. Reminds me of some of the some of the different comic books that I'll see and for sale in like little museums through the Southwest, and a lot of times these are written by indigenous comic book artists, and there's always some sort of the unique, local and or traditional spin on comic book motifs, which I think is really cool.
Okay, next message comes from Mike. This is another follow up on our long running Raven Riding Desk conundrum. So Mike says, was listening to the newest Listener mail this morning, then catching up on my comics later in the day and came across this random panel in a recent issue of Batman slash Superman colon World's Finest Issue forty eight. And then in the panel it is a hero. I actually don't know who this is, Rob, You're gonna have.
Might be owl Man. Without actually looking up the issue in question, I get an Owlman vibe off of this design.
Okay, yeah, don't know who it is, but the hero in a mask says, this idiot thought it'd be wise to taunt me quote why is a raven like a writing desk? And then Mike says the issue does not offer any answers for it either, lol.
Like, well, yeah, as we discussed, it is, for the most part in a riddle without answer, by the way, and Mike, I appreciate sitting this in. This is great. But I'd mentioned in the previous episodes that I recalled this particular riddle from the nineteen eighty two animated film The Last Unicorn, But then later on I expressed doubt as to whether I actually heard it in that movie, and maybe it was just misremembering it given the Lewis
Carroll roots of the thing. But I looked it up and I can confirm that, yes, this riddle is referenced without answer in The Last Unicorn.
Nice and remember the previous listener who wrote in and included the list of answers people had come up with for it, even though it's not supposed to have an answer. I think the clean the tidiest one was because.
Poe wrote on both Yes, that was pretty good.
Let's see now, oh Rob, But we have next up. If you're feeling brave, we have a Pokemon intensive message. Do you have the fortitude for this intense dive into Pokemon lore?
Yeah? I guess, so let's do it. See what we got?
This is from Jeff take it? Take it?
Oh? Okay, all right, you want me to read it either? What?
Either way?
I could No, I'm happy to here we go this one. Yeah, this one is titled Monsters for Your Pocket. Okay, Hey guys, I accumulated some Pokemon related thoughts after listening to recent IS shows. I agree with Rob that Pokemon Concierge on Netflix is great. It doesn't have the depth of a Kiki's Delivery Service. Of course, is the excellent Nyazaki film. And you said your kiddo's a big fan of that one, now.
Right, My daughter's favorite movies. She's seen it a bazillion times now and she was kekey for Halloween.
Ah. Well, if you want to introduce some Pokemon, this might be the way to go. It is inevitable, one would assume. Well, anyway, so just says it's no Kiky Delivery service quote, but it does have a little ghibli flavor, including the appreciation of nature and the joy of flight. I would argue that it's the best Pokemon media ever created, But then I was always more excited about the world's ecology and biology, not so much the fighting. I prefer
the tangential world building. Weird stuff like the Detective Pikachu movie. I totally agree there again, we may watch that one on Weird House eventually. I really enjoyed that one. Concierg is aggressively pleasant and easily digestible, A very short series of very short episodes that just makes you feel good.
Now I'm sorry. I think we're probably going to be recreating an exchange that already happened in earlier episodes, but I don't remember the answer. Is Pokemon Concierge about an actual concierge at a hotel.
Yes, yes, where Pokemon creatures come for vacations, and it's her job to make sure they're they're you know, they're they're well looked after, and I think that they don't get in fights and stuff. So it's extremely comfy and and and if memory serves, it's also kind of I don't know if it's authentic stop motion, but at least has that style, so it's it's kind of a rub the fur situation where you literally want to rub the fur of the creatures beautiful. Okay, So Jeff continues with
more just Pokemon thoughts here. Pokemon's Snap was a really fun game in which the point was to take pictures of Pokemon in nature. It really gave me the feeling of what it might be like to go on vacation in their universe. Photos were scored on framing composition, whether you captured interesting behavior, rare species, et cetera. No battles.
This was the height of Pokemon fever. So they even had kiosks in the real world where you could bring favorite photos from your game and print color stickers and such.
Whoa was this was? This available for the Nintendo sixty four after had the same.
Home this was I had a Nintendo sixty four, but I was again I missed the boat on all the Pokemon stuff, so I was just oblivious if it.
Was okay, okay, jj just chimed in to say almost positive. It was on the n sixty four. So I think I'm remembering this game correctly. I think my roommates in college had this game.
Okay, cool, cool, Jeff continues. My favorite episode of the classic anime were the ones where they ditched the main plot line entirely, such as the one that showed what Professor Oak is doing all day, running experiments, performing statistical research, care and feeding of his Pokemon test subjects, et cetera. It's a common theme in the game and the shows that when Pokemon are discarded, they are transferred to Oak's lab.
This episode showed what happened on the other side of those transactions and was proof that they weren't just sent to quote a farm upstate.
Oh okay, that's nice to pick up on loose ends, so people don't assume the worst.
Yes. In another episode, the human heroes and villains are separated from their Pokemon, who are marooned on an island. Miaw with a masterless Pokemon who chooses to be villainous. Tries to rally the villain's Pokemon to fight the hero's team,
arguing that as bad guys, they should stick together. This leads to a philosophical debate among the little monsters, with the other bad Pokemon insisting that Pokemon are neither inherently good nor evil, and they only fight to please their masters, and there was no way that they were going to attack their brothers just to please some third party jerk trying to stir up trouble. I think they all end up having snacks around a campfire or something like that.
Is a masterless Pokemon kind of like a Ronan, I guess.
So the Pokemon human relationship certainly raises a lot of questions, which again, like this is kind of one of the interesting parts about the world building in Detective Pikachu, where it kind of it's almost like like, clearly they took some inspiration from Blade Runner, and there's sort of like this, how do humans and replicans live alongside each other? How to pokemons and humans live alongside each other?
That sort of thing.
But there's no there's no Blade Runner out there icing Pokemon in the street just to go ahead and prepare everyone for that.
They don't have a void komp test.
No, there there are. There is one really key c scene where a Pokemon is interrogated.
Okay, Mew two, I'll tell you about Mew two.
All right, Jeff continues. One thing that's never been clear to me. Are there any regular animals in their universe? I have I have asked my child this as well, and uh the answer was wishy washy, but perhaps not anyway, Jeff continues, says, I don't remember ever seeing anyone with a regular dog or cat as a pet, though there are many dog and cat Pokemon analogs, and in fact, many species are explicitly described in relation to mundane animals. Whenever they eat on the show, the food seems to
be vegetarian. Perhaps the notion of slaughtering and consuming creatures who can follow complex instructions and pronounce their own names was just completely beyond the pale in their world.
Oh yeah, I can imagine that. Yeah. So if they have Pokemon instead of animals, and the Pokemon are a little too lovable, like, can't you can't eat any of them?
Yeah? Like, really, the idea of eating a Pokemon is grotesque. I think we can all agree. Back when the Good Jeff continues, Back when it was all the rage, I ran into a young guy playing Pokemon Go in a park. He had just caught his favorite a corsela, a coral based species. They can only survive in clean water. He was excited because he was about to start undergraduate marine science work protecting real life coral species from bleaching due
to climate change. Wow, he said he didn't know if he would have been on this path in life, if not for course Sola, that's intense. Is that I'd love to hear that. So I believe the franchise Jeff continues actually has some positive effect, hopefully enough to counter its merch contribution to the Great Pacific garbage patch. Wow.
Well, I feel like we've heard enough from different listeners in this regard that I'm pretty confident it really does drive people to go into the biological sciences and zoology especially, I guess. I mean we heard from that the other listener who like runs the Pokemon themed wildlife camps for kids. Yeah, so I'm sold on the idea it really does get kids in the biological creature orientation space.
Yeah. I mean, it's like fascination with monsters, you know, or you know, mythology and all these things activate the wonder centers of the brain, you know. And we can have wonder about the fantastic and the imagined, but we can have equal and even greater amounts of wonder about the natural world. And these things are interconnected. Oh, let's see. But Jeff is not done. Jeff also chimes in on polywater. It says, on a related note, polywater doesn't seem to have been completely eliminated.
Well, Jeff's polywater syndrome doesn't seem to have been.
Oh, polywater syndrome. I'm sorry, I just read the email. I was imagining polywater is actually real and there's some of it out there and we have to eliminate it.
It is not real. So to explain, Jeff links to a University of Michigan press release headline nitrial and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics University of Michigan study reveals so. To read a bit from the top of this article quote, nitrial and latex gloves that scientists wear while they are measuring microplastics may lead to a potential overestimation of the tiny pollutants, according to a University of
Michigan study. The study found that gloves may unintentionally contaminate lab equipment scientists use to measure microplastics in air, water and other samples with non plastic particles called steer rates. University of Michigan researchers Matteline Clough and Ann McNeil suggest clean room gloves, which release fewer particulates, be worn instead.
So the similarity to the polywater issue here would be that if these researchers are correct, simple contamination problems contamination of samples is contributing to a trend or perception in recent research. That perception is about the abundance of microplastics in the environment. But I think even if these critics of microplastics research are correct, there's a major difference in both quality and quantity of the misdirection that follows from
that contamination. So this is not arguing. The researchers here are not arguing that there is no proliferation of microplastics in the environment, just that it is somewhat overestimated by contamination issues caused by lab gloves. So you know, they're not at all suggesting that microplastics are a wholly invented imaginary substance like polywater turned out to be. To read from the article, this is quoting in McNeil, the senior author of the study and a University of Michigan professor
of chemistry, macromolecular science, and engineering. McNeil says, quote, we may be overestimating microplastics, but there should be none. There's still a lot out there and that's the problem.
Yeah, very important to stress here, especially given how easily a paper like this can be misconstrued in ther some corners of the media, where if something is not if there's some correction on something that was previously thought, well, then it's spun as a hoax or some sort of nefarious plot to get you to I don't know, but buy less plastic, that sort of thing.
Yeah, that's a really good point. Motivated parties often like to take research like this that expresses any skepticism or correction of a trend in research as proof that the entire trend in research is false, which is not the case. Here was the case for polywater, does not appear to it all be the case for microplastics. They're real.
All right, Well, Jeff closes out this email by saying, thanks again for providing such varied and weird content. Your shows have been helping to distract me as I recover from injury. You provide an excellent service to us all Jeff.
I wish you a speedy recovery.
Jeff, absolutely all right. Well you know, Joe, I'm at six percent battery on my laptop. Here, let's do a little weird house before everything dies on it.
Okay, let's wrap it up. Pick, take your pick, of any of the Weird House messages.
Oh, let's see, there's some good ones here, some good recommendations here for films that we have not watched yet. Let's just see where my cursor lands. This one comes to us from lf. LF says, Hey, have you guys done what Dreams May Come? I saw it a very long time ago, probably twenty years, but it stayed with me to this day. Not horror exactly, but more about the horrors of real life and how one man goes about dealing with it. Thanks.
No, we have not done it on the show. And I've never seen this movie.
Oh yeah, I saw. I think I saw it in theaters when it came out. Of course, has you know the late great Robin Williams based on matheson work and if memory, if my memory is correct, Werner Herzog has a cameo in it. Oh, and it is essentially a harrowing of hell, sort of a venturing into the underworld in search of lost loved ones, that sort of thing.
Oh, kind of orphig tale. Yeah, yeah, okay, I'm going to do this message from Scott because it also pertains to Richard Matheson. So this was a response to our episode on The Last Man on Earth during Vincent Price the adaptation of Matheson's I Am Legend, Scott says, thank you so much for covering I Am Legend on Weird House. Richard Matheson's novel is one of my all time favorites, and your discussion reminded me that it has been an inexcusable length of time since my last reread. I found
your comparison of the ending's tone interesting. You offered variations on two views for the ending of the movie. Number one, the end is bleak because it is the end of real humanity with the death of Morgan as the last Man. And two, it's an uplifting end because the monster is gone and the new people can get on with creating the new civilis a I offer a third view, it is a depressing ending because the new society reveals itself to be subject to the same prejudices and hatred as
the old one. In the movie version, when they kill Morgan, they destroy the hope of a true cure for the disease his blood as the source of antibodies. Their fear and desire for vengeance doom them to continue the stopgap treatment they've been using to keep the disease at bay.
The novel does not include any of the ideas that Morgan's blood has curative properties, but the depressing ending is still there because of the ferocity with which the living infected slaughter the undead vampires when they come to seize Morgan, and the loathing with which he's treated while held captive before his execution. The Wikipedia article states it as quote fiendish glee, which matches my recollection of the scenes in
the novel. In the end, the new society is subject to the same prejudices fear, hatred, and violence toward the other as humanity has always been, be they undead vampires or Morgan Scott. Yeah, that's an interesting view that. So there are a new people in a way, and so in one sense we're predisposed toward their success because they're people if you accept them as people, like they are the people now, but also they're people in all the bad ways.
Yeah, and it's been a while since I've seen Omega man. But they lean into this a bit more by having the new people as mutants is kind of like ghoules, kind of like the mutants that live underneath the planet of the apes, and they're essentially like carrying out like an anti technology inquisition as well. So yeah, very much summoning up these ideas of like, yep, these are the new people, same problems as with the old people. Nice but maybe, just maybe Chuck Heston will give his life
to save everybody. We'll see. We may come back and discuss the Mega Man in full at some point in the future.
Okay, you want to do one more?
Yeah, let's see what we What do we got? We got some more mentions of films. Yeah, here's one from Dean. Hey, guys, just sending you some recommendations for Weird House two. I've mentioned before. First Encounters of the Spooky Kind, which you guys have been talking about featuring since you covered Mister Vampire back in twenty twenty one. Twenty twenty one, Come on, guys. Then there's Latitude Zero, a kooky one featuring Christopher Lee.
Then two more, the Angry Red Planet and the Monolith Monsters. We've mentioned monolith monsters for sure on the show, and I think we've mentioned Angry Red Planet. Think about it, and thanks for the show, Dean. Well, Dean, thanks for I like it when people keep writing in about shows.
Don't let us forget the ones that we need to cover. Yeah, Encounters of the Spooky Kind is a very important film in the history of this sort of supernannatural film, Hong Kong supernatural picture, and that's one I would like to cover that at some point. And then yeah, the model of Monsters has come up on the show as well, so yeah, I have to look I'm not as familiar with Latitude Zero. I need to look that one up, but generally, if Christopher Lee is in it, it's probably watchable.
Hey, do you have enough laptop battery for me to do one more message here?
Let's find out.
Okay, this is from Lynn. Lynn says subject line film for Weird House Cinema starring baby Hugh Grant. Lynn says, a great, totally bonkers film for Weird House Cinema is Layer of the White Worm, starring Hugh Grant before anyone knew who he was. Rob Have we not done Lair of the White Worm? I thought we had.
We almost did it once. Okay, you picked it and then then, you know, for various reasons. Sometimes we'll change things at the last minute.
I don't remember why that was. Okay, Yeah, anyway, Lynn says Hugh Grant, before anyone knew who he was, almost called him Lou Grant at least he probably hope so. And I wonder if he lists it highly on his filmography nowadays. I'm guessing not, but he should. Layer of the White Worm is so balls to the wall crazy it deserves to be celebrated somewhere. One viewer's warning, however, devoted Catholics might be offended at one scene involving a crucifix. No,
nothing like The Exorcist. Layer is one of my favorite films of all time. It's my dream to see it discussed on a show like yours. Keep up the great and important work you're doing. Best wishes, Lynn. Yeah, okay, well I've forgotten whatever happened to that time we almost did it. But I have long enjoyed this movie. My wife and I both love it. It's kind of a favorite horror movie in our house. It's it's very, very weird, definitely, and has a great sense of humor.
Yeah, I don't. I honestly don't know how you Grant views it, but you know he got to work with Ken Russell on it. It's a kN Russell film, so I would hope that you know, there's there's some fondness for that, and in general, yes, if you were, if you were, of if you find yourself sometimes offended by religious content and films, Ken Russell movies might not be for you, yes, but but he is he is indeed quite a fascinating filmmaker.
I enjoyed Lin's warning that there might be one little scene that could be offensive to Catholics, a tiny little bit of blasphemy. Yeah, no, yeah, it's it. I think will be a highly offensive affair. But but I don't know, it's also very it's got a lightheartedness to it. Also, it's very fun.
Yeah, I'm I'm a we need It would be great to figure out what kN Russell film we should cover, because there there's you know, a lot of a lot of really good, weird Ken Russell movies.
Totally Okay, does that do it for today?
I think that's probably for today. But we have so much we didn't get to.
We'll touch more in the bag here, So we're gonna have to do another Listener Mail episode pretty soon. I think in a few weeks.
Yeah, just in a few weeks. So if we didn't get to what you wrote, us. Don't worry. We may get to it next time, but don't let that stop you from writing all new emails, from sending all new pet photos, dream interpretations, thoughts about how we don't look like, how we sound, and so forth. All of it's fair game. We'd love to hear from you. Just a reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast, with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, short
form episodes on Wednesdays and on Fridays. We set aside most serious concerns, so 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 stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.