Stuff To Blow Your MindOnce more, it's time for a weekly dose of Stuff to Blow Your Mind and Weirdhouse Cinema listener mail...
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind Listener Mail. This is Robert Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And it is Monday, the day of each week that we read back messages from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind email address. If you have never gotten in touch before, why not give it a try. It is contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Whatever you want to send in this fair game. Of course, we always appreciate feedback to recent episodes, especially if you have something interesting you'd like.
To add to a topic we talked about. Send it on contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Oh, and also we should give you a heads up at the beginning of today's episode. This will be an all new listener Mail episode, but for the rest of this week we are going to be running some Vault episodes because Rob and I will be out, but we're hoping you'll enjoy the Vault episodes in our absence, and we'll be back with all new content once again next week.
All right, what are we have in the nail bag today? Joe?
Let's see. I think I'm going to kick things off with this message from Ginger responding to our series on Anomalous imagery. This was a series we did on weird looking fuzzy images. Specifically, we focused on images from deep underwater or from things created in ancient history, images that some people are quick to interpret as evidence for their highly speculative theory of choice aliens, atlantis, time travelers, etc. But a lot of what we talked about in that series was the correspondence between the objective qualities of images and patterns in how people interpret those images. So, for example, the more fuzzy and ambiguous the imagery is in the first place, probably the better for people who want to use it to support their alien riddled model of the world, because higher quality or higher resolution imagery tends to be more easily identified as whatever it actually is, and so far it has never been aliens. So moving on to this message from Ginger, Ginger says, hi, guys, and she includes a photo for us to look out of a large boulder sort of a rock out cropping situated over a freeway. Ginger says, this is a rock I have seen all my life driving on the freeway past Eagle Rock, California. It's pretty iconic.
In these parts.
As a kid, I was fascinated by the eagle head I saw with the eyebrow extending out and the beak carving into the hillside on the left. Folks, see, you can't see what we're looking at here, but I do see what Ginger is talking about. Look, the image she included does look like an eagle's head with a kind of curved beak coming down in the front. And yeah, and then there's a kind of recess in the rock that could be interpreted as the eagle's eye.
Okay, I can see that. I can see an eagle here.
But then Ginger says, a few years ago, I found out that the eagle in the rock that the Native Americans saw is actually flying toward us. The eagle is what I thought was the eye. There is no beak. My reaction to this new information was conflicted. I think I felt scammed at first. Obviously, some of the eagle has worn away over the years, and the shadows play a part in this image. I still see the eagle head mostly, but I can switch over when I want to. Thanks for all you do, Ginger. And then Rabbi attached a photo that she included at the end of her message where I think it's clearer what is supposed to be the eagle. It's this thing that she was looking at as part of the eyebrow or the recess of the eagle's eye, and it's actually I think, like the wingspan of an eagle interpreted as like swooping down to snatch up a fish or something.
Ah, I see.
But I do see the point you're making. Ginger. How with like priming that you're supposed to see an eagle in this rock, you saw a completely different eagle than other people, did, you know, like and but you still we're able to see it, and I'm able to see it also with the correct priming, which is evidence of just how suggestible our minds are when we are looking to see something, especially a particular type of image in you know, basically random data in a rock face or something that's just an unrelated natural object.
Yeah.
Yeah, And I wonder what it says about like modern appreciation and understanding of an eagle versus historic the Native American understanding of an eagle. You know, like maybe we're just used to seeing eagles close up in images, so we're more likely to see the head, whereas this would have been a culture more associated with like the sites of eagles, that it distant. I don't know I'm reaching here, but yeah, I can't help, but wonder I want to question what it is about our modern understanding of the world that might lean us in one direction that prior generations of different cultures would not have gone in.
I think another thing could easily just be also the direction that you're looking at the rock from, Like if Ginger was most likely to see it from the freeway below, whereas people one hundred years ago or hundreds of years ago looking at it might have been more likely to regard it from a different vantage point.
Yeah, all right, let's see what we have here next for us. Oh.
In other news necromancy, This one comes to us from Jamie. Jamie says, Dear Robert and Joe. I'm enjoying the pot as ever, and the current series on necromancy is especially fun. If you're looking for examples of how gen Z is doing necromancy, I'd recommend the very recent Australian film Talk to Me spoiler alert. They don't follow the rules as a good ancient Mesopotamian would, and it does not go well. Some things never change, I suppose.
Oh yeah, they followed the in key do path of maybe I will throw throwing sticks at the dead in the nether world even though I wasn't supposed to. That didn't go so well.
Yeah, I mean there aren't a lot of movies in novels about strictly successful necromancy. I mean, that's not the trope.
And they followed the instructions and the tablets to a t and everything was aoka.
Yeah, nothing happened.
Yeah, those boring necromanci story. Ever, something's got to go wrong, right, But anyway, Jamie continues on a much schlockier note. You might also want to try Brian Lumley's Necroscope series of novels, which have it all fungal vampires from a parallel Hell dimension, embryonic mind transfer, and at the heart of it all, a battle between cold war necromancers. I think they're enormous fun, but I cannot stress enough how trash youth these books are. I was going to say he has trouble writing female characters, but to be honest, he just has trouble writing characters. I'm pretty sure Brian Lumley was the inspiration for Channel four's parody dream Weave A plus actor Garth MORANGI. Keep up the good work, Jamie.
I have always wanted to read at Garth Morangi novel, So maybe this is as close as I'll get. I've got to check this out now.
I recently before this email came in, I've talked about my decision fatigue, feelings of over choice when it comes to book samples, and so I'll be like up late at night and I'll think back on book covers I saw when I was a kid, and I'll go like, I should give that a go. Some people like that, some people were nostalgic for that. And I do remember seeing the Necroscope book covers, especially the one that had the really frightening, like screaming vampire skull I think, with a tongue, monster tongue coming out of it. And I remember at the time like being like a little I was like reading all these Stephen King books, which was probably quite inappropriate in junior high. But something about those Necroscope covers, I was like, this is the hard stuff. I need to stay away from this. So I never read them, and I did pick up a sample of Necroscope the first one, and yeah, I don't know. I wasn't disinterested, but it's just so hard for me to actually latch onto a book these days because then my mind's wandering, Well, what's another book that people seem to like that I never read and you know, came out back in the day.
I've never read any of these books. I don't think I'm familiar with the covers really, but I just looked them up now and yes, they these covers have strong qualities of blood, blood, blood and bits of sick.
Yeah, exactly. So I don't know.
I mean, we're in the Halloween season. Maybe I'll pick that a sample of Necroscope up again and give it another go.
Just for kicks.
Oh, but also, Jamie, I want to give a big thumbs up to your recommendation of Talk to Me. This is a very recent horror film that I actually just watched with my wife a few nights ago, and we both loved it. I thought it was really strong, one of the best new horror movies I've seen in recent years. It's got a great cast. Sophie Wilde and the rest of the young cast are really excellent. The horror elements are powerfully uncanny. It has really strong, I would say. At the same time, traditional but original lore thought it was really good.
I'm cool. I'll have to check it out all right.
This next message is from Russell. Russell says, Hi, Robert and Joe. I was recently listening to The Necromantic Urge Part two episode and near the end you were discussing the ancient connection between sleep and death. It seems that even today we make this same connection, sometimes comforting the dying by saying that it is just like going to sleep. We're often relieved when a loved one who has been suffering is now quote at rest. While talking about this connection among ancient Greeks and Romans, one of you mentioned the fact that there are physical similarities, like being prone and not moving. This sparked a thought for me. While we don't generally move or don't move much while asleep, there is a small percentage of the population for which this isn't always true, sleep walkers. That made me wonder if there was any connection between the fact that a case, someone who was asleep i e. Half dead in the ancient world might get up and walk around and the idea that on rare occasions the dead might do the same. In other words, is there a connection between sleep walking and the idea of zombies? Love the show and look forward to each new episode. I particularly look forward to Fridays when I can hear about another weird movie to add to my watch list. You've mentioned the idea of a Frankenstein movie run a few times in the past, which I think is a great idea. If you do, you should absolutely cover Roger Corman's Frankenstein Unbound, a movie that includes accidental time travel, children having a funeral for a bike, and the incomparable Raoul Julia. Thanks for all you do. You have my permission to use my name on the podcast. Okay, thank you, Russell, sincerely Russell.
Yeah, I always feel free to specify stuff like that. Yeah, but let's see. First, let's talk about the parasomnia. I think a look at parasomnia in the ancient world would be it would be pretty interesting. It's a pretty pretty good topic idea. We might have to come back to that, because you know, presumably people in the ancient world had the same sleep disorders we have now, and you know, to what extents were people of that time able to understand them and properly diagnose them or treat them, and what sorts of superstitions and lore rose up concerning I agree.
I don't know what kind of evidence there would be to prove this. There might be some in literary sources, but I agree that it's intriguing to think about sleepwalking as a possible inspiration for ideas about states of undeath. Yeah, but anyway, thanks again, Wrestle.
Now.
As for Frankenstein Unbound, I've never actually watched this, but it has long intrigued me because, oh I can't remember off the top of my head if this was Roger Korman's last directorial effort or among his last. It may have been his last. And it also has an interesting cast, I mean role Julia, always, always great, always interesting. John Hurd is in it, and it's based on a novel by Brian Aldis of an English writer who also pinned the short story super Toys Last All Summer Long that became AI artificial intelligence, and if memory serves, he also wrote a very early Warhammer forty thousand novelization.
Oh, okay, I know nothing of any of this. Well, I mean, I know AI, but yeah, I'm not familiar with the author.
As for the movie, I don't know. I've always kind of circled it suspicious interested, turned off occasionally by some aspects of it that, you know, some of the aesthetics that maybe I'm like, I don't know if Frankenstein's the look of the Frankenstein's Monster and a given Frankenstein movie can really move you in either direction, you know, like, I'll see this Frankenstein on the on the stills, and I'm a little suspicious. Meanwhile, I see like the monster from what Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell, the Old Hammer film. I'm like, yes, this is an amazing Frankenstein's Monster. I want to know more.
Oh, I just looked up the creature from this movie looks kind of like a cross between like a Ferangi and raw Head Wrecks.
Actually, yeah, it's a strange design. But again, I haven't watched it enough of this to see the monster. And maybe the performance is great. A great performance can can do a lot for strange design choices in the character. It had a great poster or VHS art, I guess I remember from back in the day. It's like an eyeball and it's like the eye the eye has been stitched together, so he's like to see the Frankenstein stitch work going across the eye.
Like a needle went into the eyeball.
Yeah, so it has a lot of things going for it. All right, here's one from Marcus Marcus's high Joe and Robert. I have now been listening to your podcast for several years, and while I do not listen to every episode, I usually listen to at least one episode per week. Your recent episodes about Future Shock reminded me of the late seventies sci fi novel The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner. This book was one of the factors influencing me to pursue a career in computing, and also, in my opinion, quite nicely predicted some trends and developments. Quickly revisiting it, I found out that one of the inspirations of the novel is indeed the book Future Shock. I do not remember you mentioning the novel, so if you have, my apologies for an unnecessary email. No, no, we did not mention it, so this was a necessary email. And then Marcus ends this by saying, thanks for your great work. Your podcast got me into reading all the culture novels and reading a lot more interesting stuff.
I just looked up this book and there is a classic cover of it that has like a hume. It has like a kind of green man with his brain exposed, and then there is a tongue like pink arrow going into his mouth. It's odd.
Yeah, that looks interesting. I don't think I've read anything by this author, but yeah, the book cover looks cool. Sounds like it covers some interesting topics as well. And of course, yeah, as for the culture novels, they speak for themselves.
They're pretty great.
Apparently it introduces the concept of a worm in the malware sense.
Hmmm, all right.
This last message is from Lee regarding Stickiness and Weird House Cinema. Lee says, hello again, Rob, Joe, and JJ. Hope this email finds you all.
Well.
Do to something in the way the settings in my new podcast s app work, or in this case don't. I just finished the third episode of Stickiness. Well that's okay, Lee, I realize by now I'm late to the party. But the first sticky monster coming to mind is The Blob nineteen fifty eight, especially the arrival and the Old Man. I just recently rewatched this classic film, which I believe you mentioned in a recent episode as well. I would vote recoverage of the nineteen seventy two Gargoyles movie. I saw it on TV. Then I guess I need an excuse to rewatch. Do you do you?
Lee?
Do you need an excuse? From what I do? Remember? It would be a fun episode as always looking forward to the next episode. Love the work you do, sincerely, Lee.
Well let's see. First of all, yeah, I'm a big fan of The Blob, both the fifty eight original and the eighty eight remake. I think as a kid we had a VHS someone had taped off the original The Blob, so I watched it many many times, and yeah, it's tons of fun, has a great, great theme song, one of the best horror movie theme songs out there.
I feel like the original Blob is a lot sillier and then people might expect, because it's like one of these like fifties classics, you might expect it to be more like Invasion of the Body Snatchers or something, but no, it is like quite silly.
Yeah, I mean it has some suspenseful moments, but with the caveat being I don't think I've ever watched it as an adult. I'm only going on my memories of watching it over and over again as a kid, and so some of the some of the humor might have been lost on me, and I was more, you know, and and it terrified me more. Certainly, the scene with the old man finding the blob and he like gets it on a stick and holds it up and then it like crawls down the stick onto his hand. That was pretty scary stuff. And I suspect that scene probably holds up pretty well. And I believe the eighty eight version updated it and did a version of that as well.
Yeah, I think you're right about that. There are some quite scary scenes with the blob, but I think mainly the silly stuff is like in the characterization, they're they're these sort of I don't know, kids who are into racing their cars, and the way they talk. I just remember being quite funny.
Yeah.
Yeah, As for gargoyles, all right, another vote for gargoyles. Maybe we will have to check it out. And oh and then Lee mentions an excuse to rewatch if anyone out there literally needs like an excuse, like a typed excuse. I can't handwrite one, but I can type one. You can email us and I will type you an excuse that you can hand over to whatever authorities or loved ones need to know that you are excused and you are authorized to watch whatever weird movie happens to be.
With an illegible signature from doctor Jessop.
Yeah.
Yeah, we'll see if we can get him to sign it. All right, Well, on that note, we're going to go ahead and close out, but we'll be back again. The rest of this week is going to be some rerun episodes, but some hand selected ones, and then next week we'll be back with some all new Halloween content. We got some exciting stuff lined up. Just remember that our core episodes are on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Monday's Listener Mail, Wednesday's is Artifactor Monster Fact, and on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird film on weird Ouse Cinema.
Huge thanks 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 my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
