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The Way of the Sword

Jan 03, 201232 min
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Episode description

From samurai blades to claymores, the sword is one of humanity's most iconic inventions, and they've cut a bloody swath across history. In this episode, Robert and Julie consider the way of the sword, from their manufacture to their use in film and more.

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Transcript

Speaker 1

Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglass. Julie, I know I'm kind of beating a dead horse here, but but I just I always feel like violence on our public transportation systems would be a lot more tolerable if these guys were fighting with swords. So if you think that if we all had scabbard on, well, I'm

not arguing for everyone to have a sword necessarily. I'm not saying sword toting populace is a is a safe populist, or anything to that extent. I'm just saying that, like some dude shoots another dude at the train station, it's it's this huge panic thing. But if two dudes are sword fighting, I mean, you're gonna kind of take note, You're gonna watch, You're gonna hopefully back up. But what you're saying, there's something stylish, there's something classy, there's something

exhilarating about the about a good sword fight. Did you make it sound like we live in Paris and someone is going on, God, that's what I'm saying. It would be I mean that's how I imagine, you know, how it goes in Paris. It's just random duels breaking out on the subways, some of refresh listeners. If you're out there, just if you could confirm, that would be great. Yeah. And you know, Europe is just lousy with immortals trying to cut each other's heads off from watching the TV.

But and and of course having watched the TV, having watched movies, occasionally we do get to see a great sword fight. And there is, for my money, nothing better. Did you have any mind? Is there is there sword fight that sticks out to you? What? I have a couple, Um, The first one is Princess Pride does have some good Yeah, Nigo Montoya, he's just the whole thing, like, uh, he know, my name is Nigo Montoya. You killed my father to die? Yes? And then they actually have a great fight. Yeah, yeah,

that's some really good swordmanship. And he fights he can fight both, but they both actually uh Wesley and and you go both well it's kind of trickery right because it was edited, but they use the right and left hand so it looks really fancy. And then my all time favorite though is Killed Bill Volume one, the last fight scene in which I believe it is or n Ishi played by uh Lucy Lou fights the bride Uma Thurman, and it is I mean, I love the scene. It's

a gorgeous scene. I mean, she's just Uma Thurman's character has just slaughtered the crazy eighty eight, this gang. She's blood splattered. She goes out into this courtyard in Tokyo where she meets her her enemy or In, and the snow is falling, and it's just beautiful because the scene is it's stark, and it's full of honor and um, you know, there's some exchanges that are really great. And

then of course Lucy Lu's character gets completely decapitated. Well I'm not completely take that back her the top of her head gets decapitated. Yeah. Well it's it's like decapitation is such a hallmark of of sword fights on cinema. It's like, after a while they realized and we can't just go for the it up neck cut. We need to go for something a little more inventive. So you see the top of the head like the brain cut. Yeah, which is really disconcerting, I think, you know, but it

allows her to say this line, which I love. She says that really was a ha Tori Hanzo sword, which to me, that's what that scene is about, right, the power of this sword. Yeah. Well, um, that also brings to mind this was not one of my favorite sword fight films. But um, there's that the film Equilibrium years back. It was kind of a matrix seeing had Christian Bale in it, Sean Bean and it's it's not the best film, but the action, some of the action was pretty slick.

Uh and spoiler alert, but Tay Diggs gets his face cut off, like not like people, but like that straight up, we can't actually cut anybody's head off because it's not exciting enough for modern cinema. So just like the front of his head is cut off. But but if I were to choose thinking about okay, I'm sure you can find it on YouTube, it's like he could have been in the Body's exhibit then, because there's like a slice

of his face. Yes exactly. It's kind of like like the dudes who choreographed these and planned this out, they were like the bodies exhibited their favorite place. Yeah. Um, but but in terms of like just great sword fights, my my two favorites are probably the the in fight scene between Macbeth and McDuff and Roman Polanski's adaptation, because like that one, because it's just such a brutal, drag out fight, Like there's nothing like fancy and swashbuckley about it.

It's it's uh, it's just two dudes going at it with this this air of on one side vengeance and then the other side, uh, just you know, backed against the wall with nothing to lose. And uh. And then the movie Rob Roy has a great scene between Archie Bald Cunningham played by Tim Roth and Rob Roy played by Nicon. So those are those are two great ones. Really, Scott's the duelist. Also, it's generally right up there on the top of everyone's list is having just a fantastic

cinematic sword fight. So in case you guys are wondering, you know, what do you think we're talking about today? Swords? Um, how we romanticize them, how they're a huge part of our culture, Um, what they're made of, and the craftsmanship. Um, you know, just all sorts of different aspects of how this tool really um entered our society and forever changed the world and of course the world right and uh,

and the word tool is is essential here. Uh, And I aroge anyone to go back and listen to our podcast that we did on tool use and the evolution of tool used, because a lot of what we say, they're really sums up um or really gets to the

heart of of what's amazing about the sword. The idea that the sword, I mean, it's kind of a cliche from anything where any kind of film reverred a master's swordsman instructing the uh, the young apprentice, Uh, you know, telling them about the sword is then extension of the human body, that the sword is part of your arm and it studies have shown neurologically, this is the way um humans and other animals conceptualize their tool use. That's how it ends up making sense inside the human mind.

And it is uh and it's very basis. It is the intation of the human body with with something to perform a task, in this case a death dealing device. Right. We've talked about this before too, Like you know you've brought it up. Okay, if you wear contacts, then are you still human? Right, because you're augmenting yourself and so you think about the sword and when we think about it now, I think it's completely antiquated. It's been out

of general use for at least two hundred years. Um. You know it's just in a very in in a sportsman's like way. Um. And yet here is this, um, this augmenting of ourselves back in the day because at one point, really is especially in the Middle Ages, almost all men had a sword, right, this was this was very common to possess. Yeah, if you could afford it, for sure. Yeah. But although at some point it really you know, is affordable to a degree. I mean maybe

your sword would break and you would be killed. But um, you know it's very possible that a peasant could have it, and certainly a kink. So this was something that that at one point history unified a great many people. So the origin of the sword is as another one of those things that just kind of vanishes into prehistory when you try and you know, nail it down. Like the already earliest blades were likely made out of bone, bits

of stone. Eventually they're creating things out of bronze. Um. We found some really amazing not when I say we, I mean humans archaeologist not last week have found arsenic copper alloy soy swords inlaid with silver from roughly uhtree BC. So we've been really into it for a while. And as far as the creation of the modern sword goes, it generally comes down to heat treatment. You can't make steel at room temperature. You have to get iron glowing with heat. You have to infuse it with carbon, then

quench the resulting material and cooling liquid. Where you get you know, the very cinematic scene of somebody thrusting the newly forged sword into the into the water or into the snow or something. Um. And then there's you know, there's layering. It's it's a very complicated craft to create a a fine sword, and some of these techniques have been lost over time or or certainly the appreciation for it is often uh forgotten as as human warfare moves

on to different technologies. Yeah, there's one Scottish sword from Middle Ages that I think is it's fascinating. Um. It is in the movie Reclaiming the Blade. They feature it there and um, this sword was forged by by weaving six strands of iron together and then the edge was made up steel and it made it incredibly strong. But the steel made it really like very uh I mean lethal, right,

because it could cut very well. But they were saying that forging this blade would have taken thousands of hammer blows struck just right in order to both strengthen the steel edge and maintain the degree of flexibility in the blade. So obviously the person who is creating this, the blacksmith, is highly skilled at this. And in fact, we'll talk about this and a little bit. Some swords we can't even quite figure out how to replicate to right and uh and like you alluded to, their these things have

to take a lot of stress. It's not just hacking into uh, you know, unarmed peasants with these things. It's uh that they're gonna hit wood, they're gonna hit armor, they're going to hit bone, they're going to there's gonna be stress ricocheting through the material or reverberating through the material itself. So you have to make it. Anyone could could potentially make something and call it a sword. You

could carve one out of kindling. But to to make an instrument like this that is going to last, uh in many cases for centuries and centuries, um, it requires a great deal of skill. Just another quick note, though particularly interesting weapon I ran across and researching this. There's a Danish blade called a seek u s e a x um or perhaps it's a sex I don't I may have the pronunciation there wrong, but I just can't bring myself. I just can't bring myself to talk about

baio wolf slang Grendel with his sex um. Yes you can, yeah, I probably can, but but anywa rate uh baio Wolf supposedly had one of these, it or would have. It's a very old blade and the handle was actually made of something called usk or usk, which is mineralized walrus penis. Of course, yeah, because the thing is you don't want the handle to get slippery and all the blood that and the Grendl blood that's going everywhere, so so you

want something that's it's gonna hold tighten your hand. Well, and I can't help thinking too that although I don't think of as walruss is like overly masculine one with the big tusks. Yeah, but I don't think of them as being like, hey, I'm gonna take you down, not like a tiger. Yeah. I guess you don't see a lot of walrus tattoos, right exactly. It would be amazing. So you know, my first thought was, Okay, you're just transferring the power of the walrus to the to the handle.

But perhaps that was just what was available. Yeah, just in aside, there's an amazing bit of street art in San Francisco Walrus laser beam, giant walrus laser beams coming out of his eyes. It's great if you Okay, there there's a tattoo. If you guys see it, take a gaze at it. But the style of swords varies just throughout the world. Um, like every culture has the sort of slightly different take on the blade. Uh. And you know it depends on the time too. As warfare evolves,

so does the sword. And we could devote a whole podcast to to just discussing that. But but just to briefly mention some some other models. Um, there's of course the rapier, the slender, sharply pointed sword that you see. I think of that more of like a gentleman's sword. Yeah, the gentleman's sword early modern Europe during the sixteen seventeen centuries, um used for thrusting and uh and yeah, there's yeah

kind of a musketeer type thing, you know. Um, the Samurai swords of Japan, which are highly revered for their craftsmanship. Those things are still around. The handles will often be replaced over time, but the blade itself often really holds up. Well. Yeah, I actually read somewhere too that um, somewhere in England the samurai's swords fights have become somewhat common. Actually, say, isn't the UK? Yeah? Said one. One member of Parliaments

says they happen every week in her home city. Um. And the government actually moved to ban the manufacturer, sale or import of Japanese style swords in two thousand and eight. This is in the UK. This is in the UK. This is from an article from Slate dot com Without swords and nerds. Well, I mean, on one hand, maybe that's just a shun, the sign that the gathering is occurring, right and well yeah, but but the other I mean,

these are not trained samurai. These are really just like kids going out in hack and they might as well be using clean on blades, which sometimes they do. But but but back to actual weapons. There's also the conda, which is an Indian double edged straight sword that it comes to a point really abruptly, especially if you're more familiar with looking at Western and Eastern more traditional Western

and Eastern models of the sword. This one is particularly interesting to look up, and it was used just throughout the region a by like the Sikhs, the Maratha's, the jots Um. And then of course there's a sword that I've found particularly interesting to to look into. And then of course it's like the great two handed great sword,

which you'll recognize from medieval iconography. This just sort of that with a really long handle that you would have to grip in two hands, and and it's just a really long blade so that if the thing was standing next to the man wielding it, it would be about his height. And uh, you see this, Uh, this sort of myth emerges over time that this weapon is not a skilled weapon that it or or even if it is a skilled weapon, that it is a weapon of

brute strength and brute power. And then there's not a martial art to it, like obviously, like anyone can can look at a Samurai sword and then look at some of the images of it and you're like, yeah, there's there's definitely a martial art to that well, and it's better documented to right right right, whereas yeah, it's it's to a certain extent, it's less documented in um, you're talking about European martial arts, right right. These were used

fourteen fifteen, sixteenth century. And even if this war began to gravitate more towards the smaller weapons and thinner weapons and change. I mean, initially, these these new soldiers that they didn't have the resources at their their fingertips, so they weren't historians, so it was easy to say, oh, well, you know, today we use this more skillful blade. And then and in the old days are they just lumbered

around with these giant pieces of steel? And then even today I've read some some interesting criticism pointing out that that a lot of this a you have like historians looking into blades, and like, if the historian picks up even an authentic sword, they're not they're not gonna necessarily know what to do with it. If they say it's heavy,

what does that mean? This is like some eighty year old British dude, right right, And especially the ones from the or the Middle Ages, which they're kind of rusted out looking. They look very crude. So if you if you don't have an understanding of how they were using you could sort of jump to the conclusion that you know, this is one step away from barbary, right, and then if you're if you're dealing we like, so you can't use the you can't actually mess around with the real things,

so you're looking at a replica. The problem with replicas is that a lot of times they are they're trying to capture the look of the of the weapon, but they end up getting the weight all wrong and the balance and the weapon all wrong. And the balance and a sword is key, like even like in a rapier. The idea is is that the hilt is heavier than the sword because it gives you balance. And these great two handed swords you you see you often see a big ball on the end pommel and that is a

counterweight that helps in leveraging the weapon. Yeah. Yeah, So there's a whole there's a whole system of weights to keep in mind. And when you really look back up at the text from that agent, people were writing books about how to fight with these things. It wasn't just like here is a big sword, go out and kill people with it. Now, they were they they showed different techniques,

there were different ways of doing it. There is a particular move with the with the long sword called the and this is in um in the German school of swordsmanship, the mord strike or the mordor slag, which is the murder strike and the murder blow. And this would occur when you would you would actually turn the sword around and then bash somebody in the face with that weighted pommel. Oh man, Yeah, And there's not enough of that in

movies like I don't know and see. You know. One of the reasons that this is the sort of information isn't sort of widespread and we don't when we think of swords, we don't automatically start thinking about your p mars arts is because these texts have been sitting around in musty libraries and um sort of lost their way, particularly in the UH in Europe, when you know, gunpowder came into play, people began to use less and less swords, and then it was taken up as a gentleman's sports.

So all of a sudden you have the sword changing from maybe a heavy instrument or a super long blade becoming very uniform and light um so that you could, you know, have some sort of duel which really wasn't meant to end in death right that was just about defending your honor. Sometimes there was there was definitely some death involved. Certainly there there are many instances, but mainly you just want that that that snansy scar on your face. Right. You can be like, man, h, yeah, that's right, I

got a duel um. But the point is there is that there's some information that was that just didn't transition from the Middle Ages from the fourteenth century to eighteenth century UM, and so we began to think of swords and a very different way. One last note on the weight of medieval swords. I have a quote here from the late Awart oaks Halt, who was a w wrote the book Sword in Hand, and he was a leading expert on medieval swords. He said, medieval swords are neither

unwieldablely heavy, nor all alike. The average weight of any one of normal size is between two point five pounds and three point five Even the big hands and a half war swords rarely weighed more than four point five pounds. Uh. Such weights too. Men who were trained to use the sword from the age of seven, and who had been tough specimens to survive that age, were by no means too great to be too practical. So okay, so that's

like the way I use my step aerobics class. If I went to a step aerobics class, right, yeah, I mean you know, in one hand. So yeah, thankfully they do not let you bring swords to the y. Right. Oh well, I did tell you about the belly dancing class. Actually she never brought a sword. She just would talk about when she was belly dancer. Because the belly dancwers will do that thing where they have the sword balanced on their head and yeah, and they bound set on

their stomach. It's it's pretty exciting stuff. So if you would always say to the classes, if we all had, you know, swords at home. Okay, so this is a part where you just kind of jut up your hip and so on and so forth. Um. One of the things I did want to mention too, is this the skill that you needed in order to wield this instrument? Um, Because think about it. In this case, you are attacking

and defending yourself at the same time. And to me, it's like this physical game of chess because you have to try to figure out what your opponent is doing. So every attack contains a defense, and every defense contains a counter attack because you attack, you open shoot yourself up potentially for an attack from either the person you're dealing with or some other individual on the field of battle. Yeah, and that's why there were so many manuals that were

instructing people. And it was I kind of think of it now too. If you get a Samsung I don't know, some sort of electrical device and then you get a user's manual with it, I'd like to imagine that. You know, back in the day, you got your sword and little users manuals say this is the best use of um of UH the sword, given how it's weighted and how your body should be an extension of it. You know,

this is how you should lunch. UM. I will try, if I will try and make sure that I mentioned this on a blog post or just on the Facebook page for stuff to blow your mind. But if anyone wants to see some images of like the long sword

UM user manual, if you will UM. There's an excellent resource called and it was written in fourteen fifty nine by hands tal Haafa called Alta Amatea und ring Kunst and Uh and the whole text is available online and you can you can browse through it and see how to use a long sword, a dagger, a spear, a poleaxe, and even wrestle. So unarmed and armed combat. So very cool, Old hands, has you covered? Um? I did want to mention to uh in skill in in a cultural use

of swords kendo. Japanese swordsmanship very cool. They follow a very rigid rules that are meant to instill as much integrity into dueling as possible. For instance, when you're about to attack your opponent, you actually make a thumping down with your foot to to sort of signify like, hey, I'm about to to to rip you a new one. Oh yeah, and I'm speaking of Japanese swordsmanship. I should,

I would. I would be remiss if I did not mention that one of the great sword fighters of all time, not Zorrow, was Miyamoto Musashi, author of the Book of Five Rings sixteen seventeen centuries Ronan swordsman. His reputation is just right up there at the top of of real life dudes and you know, probably fictional dudes too. Yeah, and it turns out there are a lot of these real life dudes magical weapons. This is something that that i've I've just I found really cool for a number

of years since I first discovered it. And that is that. Um. You you have these blades, these swords that are not just made from iron, they're made from meteoric iron. They're they're made from iron that fell from the sky in the form of a meteorite or multiple meteorites. Because generally, in some cases you might have enough uh meteoric iron there to make to forge one sword, but generally you

having to poke around. Um. And uh. Today we have Terry Pratchett, the author of the Discworld novels, He actually has a sword made from such iron. Uh. And it's you know, very much a novelty. It's you know, it's a cool thing to have in the There was a time though, before uh, smelting technology really took hold back in the Bronze Age, before mining allowed us to really

harvest iron ore. Uh. This is one of the few sources of of iron, and that was you know, you'd have to go out and like in the desert somewhere where like black bits of stone that have fallen from the sky will show up really easily. Somebody would gather these together. They get so sold here and there, and then they'd wind up in the hands of a metal worker and a swordsman, and you would have these just

fantastic weapons. The ancient Egyptians called it black copper, and it was generally just considered, you know, the the the best metal to have, the best weapon to have. And it would and it often end up being sort of ceremonial because the dudes that have them can afford the best swords. It can also probably afford not to have

to use them. Right. The seventh century calyps Um of the Middle East were said to have brandished these weapons and uh and supposedly such iconic figures as a till of the hunt and Tamerlane also wielded these cosmic blades against their enemies. Um, like I said, that's that just blows my mind. They're just thinking about these these ancient dudes carrying around these blades forged from the heavens. And you can imagine, I mean it, you imagine how you

get tales of magical weapons just off of that. I mean, can you imagine an eBay back then? That would have been very sought after? Of course it is today too, but um, it makes me think about how when we when we talk about ancient swords that we think about the material and the techniques as being primitive by today's technological standards, but in fact, um their techniques were really advanced. And what I'm talking about here is a sword, possibly

the question mark right forged out of nanotechnology. Damascus Blade. Uh. These are sabers from Damascus now known as Syria, and they date back generally during and they were just considered the ultimate weapon to to have at hand because they were strong, but they were and they were sharp, and they were but they were light, and they could supposedly cleave a silk scarf in two as it was floating

to the ground. It could I think their tails too, that it could cut through a not only the night, but riding a horse, but the horses well and all the armor and the saddle and one swoop right. Yeah, there's a saying something like cleaved man and horse together and all armor in Twain. That was on the the

ad on the packaging right at the sword store. And there are some people who think that the steel for the blade actually originated in India, but because it was exported to Europe through Damascus, it was assumed to be its source. Yeah, it comes down to these uh, woots cakes, right, yeah, which sounds delicious delicious, Yeah, Like it's you know, nice and oatmeal on the outside and then like some creamy

goodiness I was going in the middle. Yeah. Oh, in a way, there was surprise in the middle because these these cakes had had iron in them and with apparently just just a perfect array of impurities that that lent itself exceedingly well to the creation of these these magnificent swords. That being said, the guys hauling these woots cakes out of the ground, they didn't necessarily recognize what was great

about them. They just realized that they were They could sell these for some some good coin, and the the metal workers realized that these could be used really well to create something. But now a modern scientists have been looking at the namass displayed in particularly, they've been looking at one that dates back to believe the seventeenth century, and you know, studying it, uh and trying to figure out exactly what made it awesome. Has really high heart

carbon content. So they dissolved part of the weapon actually in hydrochloric acid and studied it under an electron microscope, and they found that the steel there contained these carbon nanits tubes and these are like each one of these is just slightly larger than a nanometer. We've covered these before.

These are the cannot carbon nanotube is kind of the uh, you know, one of the golden childs of nanotechnology, the idea that you're you're taking these little miniscule carbon tubes and uh and if you if you build something out of them, then the material is strong and flexible. It's the thing that people talk about building uh, space elevators out of and you know, sis a hundred times stronger

than steel and much lighter. Yeah. And the researchers also, uh say that they discovered nanoscale wires of semontite, extremely hard carbon iron compound. Um. Yeah, it's a carbon steel geometry. Yeah, they were probably formed inside the nanotubes. Now, nobody's making an ancient aliens or you know, technology of the ancients argument here to say that, oh, well they Damascus swords miths of old head nanotechnology. Well not not exactly. They

didn't they didn't know that. They're not saying that they knew there was a car there were carbon nanotubes, any sort of a fortuitous accident, right, Yeah, and you see, you see even earlier examples of this in like stained glass and UH and various UH glass blowing techniques that would end up using what we would later understand is

nanotechnology to change their coloring um. Because if you it's like we said before, if you change something at the smallest level that can you can greatly increase the way a substance behaves. It's various properties, even chemical properties. The argument here is that is what is inadvertently going on

in the creation of these blades. Yeah, and they were saying to you that, I mean, if you think about it this way, like the edge of the blade would would almost feel like it was composed of tiny diamonds, right, And so that's why it's so effective and slicing um. And there are also accounts of it being self sharpening,

which again if we don't know whether that was the case. Now, there were number of people this UH initial study came out a few years back, and and even when it came out, there were a number of people that were also kind of doubtful. They were like, I don't I don't think that this is you're necessarily seeing what you think you're seeing, or I think you're seeing something that is present in in most steel if you really looked

at it. Uh and uh, as far as I can tell, the there's no definitive word yet on exactly what the deal is with a Damascus steel other than it's uh. I mean the craftmanship is still above reproach. But right, and this is actually again, this is the sword that they cannot replicate in terms of the high carbon content and its ability not become brittle or break. Right. Yeah, the the recipe for it was lost centuries ago and

uh and since that that time. But also the woods cakes were all used up for the most part, so well, you know what did it expect? Put them out at a party. Everybody's gonna eat them? All right, let's talk about some fun with swords. How can I have fun with swords? Well, like you mentioned, you can, I mean, aside from dueling on the subway, you can dance with them, of course, yes, um uh and and I actually I love seeing the sword dancing with the with the belly dancers.

That's that's always frightening and beautiful to behold. Because what if it falls off and it kills out somebody in the restaurant, know what a bumber night? Yeah, But then there's also sword swallowing. Yeah. Well, and I was gonna mention too that there are Scottish sword dances too, just in case. Presumably they performed them before the swordsman uses the blade to cut the haggas women danced the men do. Yeah,

but yeah, they're swords swelling. And we actually have a really great article how sword swelling works by pop Stuffs Tracy Wilson. You should check out. And that looks like it's a it's just a sled of hand trick, but it is not. They're really sticking it down their throats, really putting it in their GI tract. So there you have it. The sword sword. Some of the things that make them amazing, uh, some of the things that you might not have known about, how they're made and how

they are used by skilled hands. All right, so speaking of skilled hands, let's get some hands on some listener males. Are you talking about a robot? Yes? Yeah, skilled hands. That's on a kind of creepy there, skilled hands. Yeah, there you go. Look how look how well he handles. I haven't received a agmassage from robot that would be weird. Al Right, here's one from Russ Russ Rights in Dear Robert and Julie. I wanted to thank you both for

the great work you do on your podcast. You guys have gotten me through many boring hours in the treadmill with topics that are far more mind bending and thought provoking than just staring at a wall or I muted TV high praise your Your podcast is really great. I recently just listened to the podcast about the future of Stink, and ironically enough, I saw something the next day in a hotel lounge and Serbia while I was on I was on a business trip, and I thought you might

find it interesting. It's called an Aroma brand, and it blows a certain type of smell into the lounge. Um. The lounge has a kind of homy type feel as a result of the smell, and it had a type of wood burning fireplace apple pie baking instant smell to it. It made me feel more at home there, oddly enough, since Serbia is just about as far from my home as possible since I'm from Chicago. But I'm guessing that's what the benefit of a roma brand is meant to be.

At any rate, it was definitely better than the smell of David Beckham's sweaty Sock. Thanks again for doing such a great podcast, and happy holidays to you both, because we're decent this and we were reading it during the holidays. Yeah, yeah, thank you so much for that. And um yeah, for

for anybody who missed that podcast about about smell. We we actually had a sample of David David David molecule David Beckham's foot molecules, which smelled incredibly like cheese, and it confused me because I was sort of attracted to it, but then I was because I thought it was cheese, and then I was completely repulsed. Yeah. I had a

lot of feelings work out after that podcast. Yeah, and and certainly that's that's one of the things we talked about in the the podcast, just about it, how many how much goes into our our interpretational smell but it's a good snore of bad smell and how our memory wraps around it. So yeah, there you go. But what do you guys have to share with us? Do you have something you want to share about swords? What is your favorite sword fight in cinematic history? What is your favorite

sort of related kill in cinematic history? Let us know. We'd love to hear about it. You can find us on Facebook and Twitter. On Facebook, we're stuff to Blow the Mind and UH. On Twitter, you can you can find us by searching for stuff to Blow your Mind, but our handle is below the Mind when work, and you can always email us at blow the Mind at house to work dot com. Be sure to check out

our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join House to Work staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.

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