Stuff To Blow Your MindOnce more, it's time for a dose of Stuff to Blow Your Mind and Weirdhouse Cinema listener mail...
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're bringing you some responses to recent episodes of the show. You all have been writing in about squirrels. You've been writing in about pretend play, you've been writing in about Christmas, trees in the ocean, all kinds of things to get into. So Rob, unless you have any business to address right here at the top, I say, let's jump right into the messages.
No business here, let's do it, Okay.
I think I'm going to start with this message from Hugh in response to our sort of revival of the squirrel topic. So refresher here if you don't recall. Many years ago, we did a series of episodes on the brutal, largely unknown side of squirrels, including scientific observations of squirrels eating the flesh of other animals scavenger, sometimes even killing live prey, as well as legends of squirrel on squirrel castration, anecdotes of squirrel attacks on humans with varying levels of evidence behind them, in plausibility etc. Then, just earlier this month, we returned to the topic of squirrels because of a newly published paper from December twenty twenty four. A lot of you got in touch with us to let us know about this, a paper that extensively documented a population of California ground squirrels roughly northeast of the San Francisco area, systematically hunting and eating live adult voles, which seemed to be related to a concurrent explosion in.
The vole population. Vole meat got.
Cheap, essentially, so squirrels were like, why not, let's eat them anyway. After covering this, we heard from many listeners with thoughts about squirrels, sometimes about their surprising ferocity or their lesser known tendency to eat meat. So, first of all, this message from Hugh reads, Dear Robert and Joe and JJ, happiest of New Year's toe you all. I have to agree with Rob's view of squirrel kind. Rob, maybe you can remind us what this view was after you hear Hugh's thoughts. Hugh says, I once saw a big, furry orange tomcat get hold of a gray squirrel in an open, sunny patch of lawn. I lost track of what was happening for a few seconds due to the Looney Tunes esque mailstrom obscuring the action. But when the dust and fur had settled and a mostly orange rocket had disappeared over the horizon, I could tell that the paradigm had shifted for that cat. Squirrels are expletive metal. You're all still doing a great job. I love your work, Hugh. Well, thanks for the message, Hugh.
Yeah.
I don't know if I've ever seen this particular thing happen, like the squirrel sends the larger predator running, but I can believe it. Rob, do you do you know which of you of yours this is conforming to?
We had just that they're for a grappling hooks. They're fierce, their tree lions and matches up. We have the story that I told about one chasing off a hawk in my backyard, a girl doing squirrel business. A hawk moved in to interfere with that business in some manner or fashion, and the squirrel was having none of it, and the hawk was like, okay, fair enough, I'll go pest or something else.
That makes sense. Now you referred to them as grappling hooks. This, of course is giving me the image of an expanded movie Ninja tool Kit where the ninja from their belt draws a squirrel on a line and makes you know, unthinkable use of it.
There is a Marvel superhero named squirrel Girl. My kid has several comic books of squirrel Girl. Very fun character, but it's usually played up for cuteness I believe. I mean, she's fearce and strong in her own right. But I don't know if they completely embrace the unholy ferocity of the squirrel, because squirrel Girl could be very metal, and maybe she is very metal in some installments. If not, I hope comic book artists out there embrace the beastly nature of the squirrel at some point.
All right, Rob, you want to do one of these following messages?
Yeah, here's one from Carl titled Squirrel's Return Dear Robin Joe. Without intent, I've apparently created a squirrel paradise in my backyard, which is great. Their acrobatics entertain and fascinate me and my retriever Australian sheep dog Roxy. They are minimally destructive while they go about their lives making families, building their nests, harvesting, hickory nuts and covorting in the woods outside my kitchen window and off the deck. Of all the creatures there, the squirrels and birds are the least destructive, paired with the chipmunks and rabbits that destroy plants and gardens. So I really enjoyed this episode. I haven't seen my squirrels dining on other animals or insects, but they might. There are plenty of them out there too. It would be interesting and very useful if my squirrels would develop an appetite for rabbit. Here's do a great new year, Carl. Best of luck to you, Carl. I mean, I don't think there's a way to engineer that. Maybe we wouldn't try, just leave it, let nature take its course there, because that sounds like the beginning of a horror story. You remember old Carl there. Oh yeah, he tried to teach his squirrels to eat rabbit meat. Now they only eat manfold meat.
Yeah, the backstory to Night of the Squirrels. Okay, on to the next squirrel message. Two comments before reading this one. One of them is context for the message Rob when we were I think, both in the original series and in the follow up episode we talked about your story of encountering aggressive squirrels at Grand Canyon National Park and how this related to the people feeding the animals at places where human and humans and wildlife interface. Do you want to what were the deats on that?
Oh, I mean it just gets into the basics of, you know, a fat animals, a dead animal. If you feed any wild animals of you know, varying wildness and overt danger to humans, if they associate humans with food, then they'll just get closer, and the closer they are, the more likely it is to end and bites, scratches and so forth. We want them to remain wild, wild and away from us. Yeah, that's right.
And your direct experience was that what did a squirrel basically climb you or your wife trying to get food out of your hands?
Yeah? Yeah, it's all a snack bar and made a play for it and we had to essentially like swatt it away with a hat. Wow. Okay, all right.
And then the second comment before reading this is I want to make absolutely clear that we are not advocating the behavior the list is about to describe in this message, but I did think it was worth sharing to discuss and maybe get some feedback from people who work professionally in parks and wildlife or other places where there's a lot of interface between humans and wild animals. So this is from Ben, subject line trolling wildlife. Hello, gentlemen, your recent episode on squirrels was fascinating and entertaining, as is all your excellent content.
Thank you Ben.
The discussion at the end of the episode around feeding wildlife brought to mind the fun game I play with excessively bold wildlife. When I encounter small animals that seem to be accustomed to getting food from humans, I approach them and mimic the action of giving them food. For ducks at the local park, I toss pretend bread to them. For the finches at the Trailhead parking lot at a nearby provincial park, I hold up a handful of imaginary bird seed. For the squirrels that live in my town home complex, I hold out a theoretical peanut. Then, when the animal approaches to a closer distance than they reasonably should get to a human, I jump and shout and startle them. I like to believe I'm doing my part to ruin the trust they have developed for humans. Thanks for the Great show. Ben Okay, Ben, Well, thank you for the message, and maybe you can see why I wanted to read this but also wanted.
To caveat it.
I see the reasoning here, like, of course, it's not usually good for wild animals to be desensitized to the presence of humans. We want them to avoid us, we should avoid them. But part of me also does kind of recoil at the idea of intentionally scaring wild animals. So I want to be clear again that I'm not recommending this as a good idea without knowing more. However, I know we have a lot of listeners who do work in parks and wildlife for an animal conservation. I would love to hear your thoughts those listeners about this kind of thing. Is this actually a good thing to do, or is there a better strategy that accomplishes the same goal without needlessly scaring wildlife. Is it best to just avoid interacting with wildlife as much as possible, even if the animals are brazenly approaching you for food.
Should you just run away? What should you do?
I don't really know, but I would love to hear from people who have professional expertise contact that stuff to blow your mind dot com.
I mean, I know that when it comes to things like bears and parks, there will often be you know, people in official capacity rangers doing things like you know, firing off a gun, creating a loud noise to scare them away and try and you know, drive home the idea that humans are scary and you shouldn't get too close to them. So, like I said, I see both sides of this. Yeah, what I'm cautious about would be the idea of engaging in both behaviors at the same time, of like mimicking bringing an animal in close only to scare them away. I suspect, and I am no expert. Of course, you're better off just going with the scare, like you're better off like leaving your home and just scaring all wildlife that comes close to you. So like when I go outside, if there's a squirrel too close to me, I'll clap my hands, I will make a noise, and not because they're approaching me, but because like maybe they're just a little they're lingering a little too long on the fence, and I'm like, I don't want you any closer to me, you know, you furry shackle just go ahead and get on out of here. I don't know that the mimicking the feeding is actually going to be helpful in this scenario, but I could be wrong. Yeah.
So once again, people whose job it is to study how to protect wildlife and try to try to sever this, this link or this desensitization, please write in let us know your.
Thoughts, all right. We also received more feedback about Hearts and Fireplaces. That was a multi serious episode. We did what in December holiday themed, But you can listen to him any time of the year. I mean, it's hearts, it's fireplace, It's good winter listening for sure. This one comes to us from Megan. Megan says, Hi, guys, your episode on Hearts was intriguing and it made me think of a couple of personal experiences. You mentioned that some animals used chimneys as habitat. My family moved houses a couple of years ago in July, and the chimneys had been left unused and clothes for a while. I noticed a tuneless squeaking in the living room ever so often, which I assumed was air moving through a pipe. Well, did you ever see dark bat like birds swooping around on a summer evening in an urban neighborhood and catching insects. Those are chimney swifts, which are dependent on chimneys for roosting and raising their young. They used cliff faces and old trees before the arrival of Europeans. For about a month, I listened to the chimney swift babies chirping loudly every time their parents returned with food, and abruptly one day I realized that the chimney was silent the nestlings fledged. I never saw the nestlings, just the adult population darting around the neighborhood, and then the adults and fledged juveniles migrated. They returned last July. By the way, I'm afraid of opening up the chimney and discovering the old nests glued with saliva to the brick walls and many years of bird waste. But that's for a future professional cleaning. Maybe you guys want to cover that topic in the show Animals and plants that have accidentally come to depend on human settlements. Also, the description of hunter gatherers around a fire, telling stories and entering a different mental space resonated with me. I realize it's not the same thing as sitting around a fireplace, But it seems that bars and restaurants replicate something of that social experience by turning the lights down and setting out candles or, in the case of a sports bar, operating lots of glowing TVs. And indeed, it may sound funny, but if you didn't listen to the episodes we did talk about how the TV is essentially the modern hearth. So, yeah, I mean as personally annoying as I find a whole bunch of glowing TVs in a restaurant or bar. Yeah, it could be what they're doing anyway, Megan continues, if I'm not getting tipsy and experiencing lowered social inhibitions from drinking, I find that the ambiance has a similar effect. Thank you as always for keeping us engaged and entertained.
Thank you, Megan. Yeah, interesting thoughts as to the last thing about the lowered inhibitions and the different sort of mental space you get in with different light regimes. That is something we talked about, springboarding off of thoughts in an anthropology paper we were looking at. Yeah, that did track, like how conversation was different in environments that were ruled by firelight versus daylight versus electric light, and the firelight conversations were noticeably different, at least within this example of these one people. And so, yeah, I can definitely see how the different light conditions can lead us to not only think differently, but relate to other people differently. And one thing we hypothesized was like, wonder if lower light conditions make you less aware of being observed and also make you less minutely observant of the kind of micro expressions of other people, and there is something possibly disinhibiting about that, But that was just kind of a.
Gas Yeah, and I'll had one more thought about multiple bars and intelligence, multiple multiple TVs in a bar rather, is that one of the things we talked about is like the hearth as this centerpiece, this this focal point that draws in the attention of multiple individuals. And granted, especially in a restaurant or bar, you could have multiple focal points because you ultimately may have multiple different sort of social groups. But I wonder sometimes and with some seating positions in a bar restaurant, there isn't there's that it can be a struggle to find a focal point because everywhere you look there is a tele vision you know, everywhere you look it's a different or it's the same football game or pharmaceutical commercial, and then you and it's also maybe drawing each person at a given table off in a different direction. There's no like central thing that they're both vibing on.
So I'm also not a huge fan of a lot of TVs in a restaurant or bar. But one thing I'll say is, even though I don't follow sports, I prefer sports to the other option, which is when people have the news on in a restaurant.
What are you doing?
We're sitting here like trying to have tacos, and then up on the screen there's like a body outline or just like pictures of police cars with the lights on, Like what, I don't understand that.
Yeah, I'm not a fan of that. I'm also not a fan of it just being like a net like open Netflix, like not playing anything but just the Netflix menu. It's like, fine, okay, if you're gonna play a movie on Netflix, play a movie on Netflix, or they're you know, there are four good choices on there these days, so put one of those on. But yeah, oh well.
The other option though, is playing old movies, which I I mean, there are places in Atlanta that are own for they will project like Santo movies on the wall or that's yeah, thumbs up, thumbs out to that.
That's my preference. And I think Netflix has three or four old movies. Maybe it's not to two. I'm not sure, but you know, there's still some good stuff they could be playing. And I do realize that, you know, from a business standpoint, most of these places do have to have some televisions. Like it's enough, customers are going to want that, you're going to need to have the sports. On that being said, you can overdo it.
Seems like a reason to revive the old like smoking non smoking division, except you just have a TV non TV section of the restaurant.
Yeah. Yeah, I would be all up for it or the other way Santo non santo.
Right, anyway, thanks again, Megan, great email. Okay, this next message is the first one for today that's going to get into our episodes on Pretend Play and Imaginary Friends. Now, we got a bunch of response to that. We're not going to be able to cover them all today. I'm sure that will extend into our next listener Mail episode whenever that is. But this first message is from Liz. Liz says, Dear Robert and Joe. I've been enjoying the recent series on Play, especially this last episode about imaginary friends, which as a child I called clear people.
Hmmm, oh, I love that.
I guess I equated imaginary with invisible and invisible with seathrough several years ago now, I read a short story called A Day with Cyrus Mayer by Alex Pugsley, where the child narrator describes, quote the imaginary kid, a character in my own private mythology who ran along the side of the highway keeping pace with my family's car on road trips, and I had this moment of recognition. I used to imagine my clear people doing that, or sometimes zipping along power lines on tiptoes to keep up looking forward to the next episode. Liz, that's amazing, and I want to come back to that. But Liz has a PS. Also PS. I've been meaning to write with this weird house cinema suggestion for years, ever since my mom, now in her sixties, told me about this bizarre movie she watched at a sleepover in high school. It seems to have gone by two different titles. That's I don't know I'm looking at this, is that seven S's in a row amazing title or four s's at the beginning snake. I have no idea how difficult it would be to stream or get your hands on a copy, but it sounds nice and weird. Well, thank you so much, Liz, Yeah, great, great comments throughout. First of all, this is funny because it's like this is making me question my own memories of childhood. I don't recall ever really having an imaginary friend, as I said in the episode. But when you talked about the imaginary friend running outside along the highway to keep up with the car or zipping along through the air to keep up with the car, that that was like a lightning bolt in my brain. It was like, I remember that, and yet I don't remember having an imaginary friends. So I don't know what this is. Maybe this is just spurring a false memory because of the vividness of it. But this, yeah, I felt this rumbling in my in my heart.
Yeah, vaguely stirs something in my recollection as well. Maybe something going on early as we adjust to the weirdness of writing and high speed vehicles and then we lose the novelty of it. As as we grow older. Now, as for yes, this is a this is a pretty fun movie. There was a MSG three K treatment of this many years back, and that's the only way I've ever seen it, but I remember it within that context is being pretty fun and it's got I think Red Brown's in it in a supporting role, so it's got that going for it. Perfect that snake man.
I've been thinking that at some point we need to do like a month of Reb Brown, because you know, we've done themes before. We've done like tiny People movies back to back, and I think we could do a Reb Brown theme. I've definitely been wanting to do one of the non MCU Captain America movies, and one of them stars Reb Brown.
There's another.
Then there's the other one directed by Albert Payune in like nineteen ninety or whatever. I've seen the latter, not the former, but I want to talk about them both.
Yeah, they're a number of Reb I don't we haven't done a Reb Brown film, have we. I don't recall. I think he's just come up in Connections. But yeah, I mean so many strong, strong film choices there, including of course Space Mutiny, You're the Hunter, from the Future.
That's right, We've never covered it on the show, but I know I've talked about Your Hunter from the Future many times. I think it is my favorite leather diaper barbarian movie. So it's got all the barbarian tropes. It's got him in the in the you know, speed out in the leather speedo killing dinosaurs with a sword. But it also is Star Wars. The villain of Your Hunter from the Future is Darth Vader.
Well, you know is actually Red Brown's cinematic debut. Yeah, seventy three amazing.
Yeah, well I have to Okay, we're gonna watch it.
Then.
I've never seen the MST so I'll be coming and clean.
Yeah, I vague clear, ma, I just remember the creature mostly.
All right, Rob, you want to read one of these next messages on Pretend to Play. I think we got a couple more here.
Yeah, here's one from David. David rides in and says, dear Robin, Joe, I was listening with interest to your episodes on Pretend Play. I am currently through part two. My kids are now young adults at college or working, but my recollection of their Pretend Play. My older son had a plushy that he would often have dance around. My younger son usually didn't engage in the type of play that involved imaginary characters. During yourcussion of object substitution play and fully pretend play, I remember it as type of play storytelling we would do. That sort of fell between the two. Since the two of you have kids, I suspect you were aware of the Richard scary books.
Oh, yes, yeah, we have a number of those. We have one that's very popular. I think it's called Look What's Coming down the Road in Busy Town, and it's an alphabet book about different types of cars coming down the road. So there's an apple mobile and a banana mobile. Most of them are not real types of cars, but some are. I think at this firetruck.
Yeah, the apple mobile's driven by worm, I believe. Yeah.
And there's like a xylophone mobile.
Preposterous. Well, they continue For those who don't know, these are mostly picture books filled with complex scenes, usually of everyday life, such as shopping at a grocery store, workers at a construction site, or driving on the freeway, but with anthromorphized animals rabbits, bears, dogs instead of people. There would be a sentence or two of story for ea scene, but also most of the things in a scene would be labeled the common noun in courier font below the object in the picture. A favorite bedtime activity was, instead of simply my reading them the story in the book, to make up a story about the various characters in the book, but using the scenes or objects shown in the book. For example, I might ask where the animals are going to go today, and one would say the grocery store. So I would start by turning to a page showing the cross section of a house, point to an animal, say a dog shown sweeping in a bed, and tell a story about dog getting out of bed, taking a shower, going downstairs to have breakfast. Then I turned to another page that had a picture of another animal, say a rabbit driving a car, and I'd say something like, here's dog's friend, rabbit. He's a teenager, so he can drive a car, and then describe rabbit driving the car up to dog's house and dog getting in the car. Then I might ask a question for them to help form the story, like do they need to take the freeway to get to the grocery store? And if yes, I turned to the picture of the freeway and talk about them driving and some of the crazy things they'd see. I am interested in your reaction and thoughts here. It is sort of like your toy lightsaber example, and that there is a particular image of a thing, say the dog, that is part of the story, but then the activities in the story need to be imagined more like the fully pretend play. And as an even broader issue, did you come across any discussion in your research about the relationship of storytelling to theory of mine. I suspect that listening to stories, hearing descriptions of other characters making decisions based on their own emotions and own mental states would help children develop a theory of mine. Thanks for the great podcast and infotainment, David.
Well, thanks for the message, David. In response to your later question about whether there's a link between storytelling and theory of mind, we did talk about that sum in at least one of the episodes in the series. I don't know if it was one of the ones you hadn't heard yet, but my memory of this issue is that essentially, yes, it does look based on so results like there could be a link there, but the evidence is sort of weak. So it's one of those things that, yeah, it's quite possible there's a link, but we shouldn't have super high confidence about that. I recall one of the things was just like a study actually not in children, but in adults that tried to see if there was any link between reading fiction and then better theory of mind skills and adults. And this study found that they at least thought that there was.
Yeah, yeah, but at any rate, I love this creative storytelling exercise of you using the Richard Scary books or anything like them to sort of come up with these little stories and decide what's happening. I recently granted this is my child is twelve going on thirteen now, But during the recent snow we busted out another one of these puzzles by the Magic Puzzle Company. You can look them up in the Magic Puzzle Company, and they have these one wonderful puzzles that are just so it's custom art work for the puzzle. It's not like some other piece of work that's been adapted to the puzzle. So they put a lot of effort into making sure that almost every piece has something interesting going on to it. Little pieces have cute little characters or mysterious little characters. Overall, very cute, very imaginative vibe, think like adventure time, that sort of thing, And they're a real joy to put together because everything seems to have a story, there's a big reveal that happens, and so you spend a lot of time with your family, friends, or fellow puzzlers whoever they happen to be not only piecing together the physical jigsaw puzzle, but also piecing together whatever kind of magical narrative seems to be happening. Who what are the factions here, what are they trying to do? Who is this guy? Who is this other guy? And so forth. So that experience reminds me a little bit about what you're talking about here. Well.
Yeah, and also, David, I can say that we do a similar thing in our household. I don't think we get quite as elaborate with the you know, the the jumping off storytelling as you're describing here, at least not yet. But we do a lot of embellishing as we read books. So when I read a book to my daughter, I will ask her questions about things that are not contained in the story of the book. Is just like, oh, are these two characters friends? What do they do together? You know that kind of thing, And she does like to embellish on that sort of thing usually, you know, what do they do together?
They play? What do they play? Dinosaurs? All right, what do we have next here? Oh, let's see.
We got a message about pretend to play from frequent correspondent Renata. Renata says, Hi, guys, the topic of play, and particularly imaginative play, is near and dear to my heart. I could listen to ten stuff to blow your mind episodes on this topic and write you ten letters, but I'll try to keep it brief for now. First of all, I had a bee friend. Oh yeah, Rob, we talked about be friends. Ranada's befriend, She says. His name was Buzz. Basically, any rotund, bumblebee I found hanging on the side of the house was Buzz. I don't remember having in depth conversations with Buzz, but I acted as though he was a single bee who remembered me and was my friend. I also had a friend who was a ghost named Boo. I was not very creative with naming my imaginary friends.
Apparently.
I am the youngest of four and fairly sure. I'm the only one who had any imaginary friends. Incidentally, my father, in his sixties befriended a mouse he named Kluegie. My dad insists he was friends with this mouse for seven years and that he knew it was the same mouse because of a kink in its tail for a period of a couple of years. During this time, Kloogie did live in a cage but got loose often. I think that this gets at the blurriness you touched on concerning the subtle difference between a pet and an imaginary friend. In college, I spent a semester working with Pascal Boyer, who is well known for his work in the anthropology of religion, but at the time he was exploring children's beliefs about what objects can have sentients and how that relates to theory of mind. For example, why is the idea of a sentient helicopter perfectly acceptable to children? What can the sentient helicopter know and do that regular helicopters can't, And, as you bring up in the episode, how close do these pretend sentient objects come to being gods or spiritual beings? A related topic I like to ponder is why do children today love dinosaurs and vehicles like trucks and helicopters? Are they somehow easier to personify than other objects and animals? Before it was dinosaurs and trucks, What were kids obsessed with. Finally, I'm wondering, if you're going to touch on pro wrestle, maybe you still will. Ben has gotten me into wrestling, which we see in Milwaukee a couple of times a year, and we saw in Japan last summer. I find that being at a wrestling event is one of the few times as an adult that comes close to that feeling of pretend play from childhood. You brought up other types of adult play like theater and sports, and wrestling is definitely those things, but it's also an invitation to the audience to play and participate in the pretend That feels unique. My new favorite wrestler is Dan the Dad. His persona is he is your dad. Yes, it gets weird, but he probably got the most enthusiasm from the crowd at the last event we went to because he's a relatable character. You know, he's the good guy. No one wants to see their dad get punched anyway. Excited for the remainder of the pretend play episodes, and I couldn't wait to write in all the best renata m Rob, you're the one with the wrestling knowledge.
I don't know Dan the dad, but I'm vaguely aware. Yeah, I've never seen them perform, but yeah, there are a lot of kookie characters like this, especially in the ndie scene. And yeah, I mean you deal with something like wrestling, you're dealing with that, you know, that willing suspension of disbelief, which you know is obviously there in other mediums as well. It's certainly there in film, for example. But uh, yeah, I guess there is something about like the live wrestling experience where the crowd is participating to a certain degree, they are engaged in the k fabe reality. So yeah, that's probably worth thinking about. It does have its own sort of unique flavor that doesn't compare one to one with anything else out there. I mean, that's why it's so popular and it remains popular, and I think that's also why you do find plenty of examples of it sucking new people in. Like it's it's not just this niche thing that you have to have grown up up on it and be primed you know, I have no numerous people who take in a show when they go to say Mexico City, or they go to Tokyo or somewhere else in Japan, and you know, they have the opportunity to go to a live show and it's a lot of fun. So yeah, live pro wrestling is can be pretty neat, so you know, shop around, but try one out if you're interested.
I think a lot of people who are not into it and then first sort of discover it as adults are surprised to find how much drama there is in it, like comedy and drama. Like they think of it primarily just as the wrestling, the physical activity, you know, the moves and the flips and all that, and don't realize how much talking there is, and you know.
That it's like a soap opera.
There are these relationships and sort of hyping and talking up matches and establishing conflicts and that a lot of it is very funny.
Yeah, yeah, honestly some of the I haven't done tons of live but of the shows I've been to, the most fun I've found. The matches have all been like lower card matches, so not you know, it's not some sort of like a main storyline, not a not any kind of like a championship match, not even like you know, the top performers in a given promotion. But they're just putting on a fun match. They're engaging with the crowd to a certain degree. They're throwing in some humor and some stupid slapstick. And really those are the matches that I've enjoyed the most, far more than any of the main events.
Yeah, the lower card matches. Again, I don't have as much wrestling experience as you, but they seem to me often more like this is when you bring out the zany characters, like the you know, the equivalent the wrestling equivalent of the character in a Coen Brothers movie who has six lines, but as hilarious and you remember them exactly.
All right, here's another and this one is in response to our episodes on Sacred Trees. This was another one of our series in the latter half of the previous year. This one comes to us from Rodri. Rodri writes in and says, Hi, Robert, Joe, and JJ I've been a listener since the stuff from the Science Lab days. That was the original title of this podcast. This podcast feed back in the very early days, back when you really had to describe and explain what a podcast was to everyone you knew they continue, but I've never had a good enough reason to contribute to listener mail. That all changed when I heard the episodes on Sacred Trees and especially in light of Robert Trees and exploits in Wales. I live in Swansea in South Wales and grew up here. When we were kids, our dad often took my brother and I to visit all kinds of natural and historical places in South and West Wales. One of these places of interest was a small eleventh century church in the village of Nevern. Never In is situated in the west of Whales, in an area rich in historical and natural wonders. Apart from the castles and dramatic landscapes, it is near to the site where the famous bluestones of Stonehenge were quarried. It is still something of a mystery how the two to five ton stone pillars were transported five thousand years ago the one hundred and eighty miles from the Priscilli Hills to Stonehenge. The reason he took us there was to see the bleeding yew tree in Saint Brannock's Church. The tree is one of four gnarled and ancient ewes lining the path to the church, each said to be seven hundred years old. The blood oozes from the sight of an amputated limb a dark red sap that leaves vivid streaks down the trunk. You wood is red, but the sap is usually white. So there has been no satisfactory explanation for the phenomenon. It has of corresponded many legends. The most popular reason is that the tree started bleeding in sympathy for Jesus as he was crucified. Sounds likely. I think that's probably it. Continue. The church itself has many other historic features, several inscriptions written within the church written in Augham, the ancient Celtic writing system, and a large stone cross decorated with intricate Celtic not designs. But as the Never and Castle website laments quote, the church has become a favorite on the tourist trail in West Wales. The numbers signing the visitor's book would suggest about fifteen thousand a year. Unfortunately, their interest is drawn to the so called bleeding you more than the Christian heritage and relevance of the place. They're mad. Yeah, I mean, I accept any blame that may be appropriate for being a tourist in Wales, though I don't think I know we did not get to see the bleeding YOUW tree. I would have probably gone for it. Sorry. You trees are commonly found in graveyards throughout the UK, Ireland and parts of Europe, and the folklore surrounding the species is fascinating, worthy of another episode in the Sacred Tree series. If I may be so bold, you was doxically symbolic of good and bad luck, of death or eternal life. The U is one of Ireland's five magical trees, and there are many suggestions why they are so often found in cemeteries. Norman churches were often located near the sites of older sacred temples, and the U was imported to Druids, who viewed it as an emblem of the soul's immortality. It has been proposed that because you would was used to make long bows, planting them could provide a supply to protect the church and surrounding areas. Another idea is that they were grown to discourage local farmers grazing their livestock in the church grounds. According to Britain's Best Guides dot Org quote, there have been many practical reasons for planting ewes near to dead bodies. U seeds, needles, and bark carry an alkaloid poison called taxine that would kill cattle that graze on them. According to one study, a dose of one hundred grams of chopped leaves could kill an adult. That's a fine reason to keep cattle out of graveyards, helping to preserve the ground and the bodies beneath. Some people even believe that the ues produced these poisons from the vapors escaping from the graves. The toxicity was well known. The witches in Shakespeare's Metbeth concoct a poisonous brew, including slips of U silvered in the moon's eclipse. Really, rodri here has done our research for us here. There's some more material there sighting here. In her book The Folklore of Plants, Margaret Baker says, quote, Finnman believed that witches sheltered under ues, and sensible people should avoid them. In Brittany, a churchyard, U spread a root to the mouth of every corpse buried there sprigs of you hang from Spanish balconies against lightning and hebridine thatch against fire over the kneading trough Easter gathered you prevents heavy bread. Hmm, hey, don't want that heavy bread. How Marie Trevelyan wrote in Folklore and Folk Stories of Whales in nineteen oh nine, quote, the U was regarded as the gentle guardian of the dead and was formally revered so much in Wales that to cut it down was considered an act of desecration, while to burn any part of it was looked upon as sacrilege. I could go on, but I'm in danger of getting lost down this rabbit hole forever, so I'll leave it there. Cheers Rodri.
Well, thank you so much, Rodri. Amazing message and full of interesting folklore there.
Yeah.
Actually I remember looking a bit at the U tree when we were doing the Sacred Trees episode, but didn't end up selecting that as my main research focus.
But we could absolutely come back to that, absolutely. Yeah, I too glanced at some of the sources on the you. Some of the sources I was looking at regarding the trees we did cover like they also discussed the U.
Yeah, so yeah, all right, this next message comes to us from Jeff. This is in response to a few different things. One is our Christmas is an episode on Christmas Trees in the Deep in which we talked about the biology of various undersea organisms like certain tube worms and seaweed which resemble or are named after Christmas decorations. This one also touches on rock and roll, wolf and other subjects. Jeff says subject line Easter eggs and Troubled Kids. Hey guys, just catching up on the holiday episodes. Your episode on Sunken Christmas Trees reminded me of something I saw regarding the harvesting of herring eggs in Sitka Sound in Alaska, although this is done closer to Easter than Christmas. When the herring spawn in the springtime, the locals will submerge stuff such as kelp tree branches and sometimes entire trees in the sound. The herring eggs will stick to anything in the water, and when they're pulled up, they look like they've been tinseled or maybe timpurud. With glistening fish eggs. They look absolutely delicious and are considered quite the treat. Although I suppose it's also possible that it's a super fishy acquired taste situation.
I hope to find out someday.
And then Rabbi looked up an image of this and included it here in the outline. So this is somebody who has submerged some tree branches, look like some spruce branches, into the water and pulled them up. I perfectly described to Jeff. They looked tempora battered and fried.
They really did look delicious.
Making me hungry right now, crunchy. Then Jeff goes on even more tangentially. In the Weird House episode on Rock and Roll Wolf, you discussed the fairy tale of the Wolf and the Seven Kids. This is the fairy tale that that movie was loosely based on. Jeff says, I don't think this one is very popular in America, and I certainly never heard of it when I was a kid. It's interesting how some oji Esop's fables and grim tails resonate in some cultures but not others. Now, Jeff has some other great stuff in this message, but I'm gonna skip over it because it contained some spoilers for a Japanese novel. The novel is called The Lonely Castle in the Mirror by an author named Mizuki Sujimura, and apparently there's also an anime film adaptation of this novel. I'm not familiar at all, but it sounds very interesting based on Jeff's description, and apparently the fairy tale The Wolf and Seven Goats plays a role in.
The plot of this story.
But Jeff wraps up by saying, anyway, that was quite the digression. But what I really meant to say was thanks for all the mental stimulation you gift us with every week looking forward to a new year of stuff. Jeff, thank you so much.
Jeff. Yeah, awesome. I had to look up this manga and film adaptation. I'm not familiar with these, but I'll have to put it on the list. There's so many, so much great Japanese media that I still need to get to. I'm constantly adding new things. I just watched Cats on Park Avenue, though, so I'm one ahead on all the great Japanese classics, especially in terms of cat based musicals. I'm gonna have to check that one out. It's very sweet. If you want a what an eighties musical that's all about street cats, It's it's really the only film for you. Perfect all right, Let's go ahead and skip on to some Weird House cinema listener mail. This one comes to us from Stephen. Steven says, Hey, Joe and Robert, I have to say your episode's on Weird House are so in depth, colorful, thorough and engaging that I often don't feel a need to go watch the movies you discuss. Well, I don't know. It feels like it's kind of a failure on our part. Then wait, is it? You can watch them if you want to, not if you don't, But I don't want to make it. You know, the situation where people like I don't need to watch that now because they watched it for me. I guess it's fine, But anyway, Stephen says, this is because your journey through the movies is an artful form of entertainment all on its own. I sometimes think watching the film would be a disappointment after the movie that's played in my head listening to you guys discussing it. Thank you, Steven, You're very kind. I guess I can imagine. It does remind me, for instance, of the example of growing up hearing other kids talk about horror movies that I hadn't seen. And you know what I ended up in my building, up in my head was far more frightening than anything that was actually in most of these films.
Yeah, yeah, that's true. I think we've discussed that before. You know, one thing I will say, playing off of Stephen's comment here, is that I think that how good our weird house cinema episodes are is not necessarily related to how good the movie is. You know, Like I feel like some of my favorite episodes that we've done have been about some of the Duller movies that we've covered. Sometimes they just are fun to talk about.
Yeah yeah, I mean, in a great movie, it might make for a really fun episode and that we really get to gush about it, or maybe it has really interesting connections, or there's some sort of social commentary going on. It's a lot of fun to discuss. But I don't know, there are plenty of films and great weird films that we haven't covered in part because it's like, well it's great, we talk about how great it is. But I don't know, you have to find the right balance.
I mean, I don't mean to suggest the inverse either. I don't think the worse a movie is the better an episode.
It makes.
It just feels like is kind of unrelated to the quality of the film.
Yeah, yeah, I agree, all right, Steven continues says, Anyway, I have to recommend a movie for you. I'm not sure it's up to snuff for an episode, but I do think it's so outlandish, derivative and not quite brilliant that I have to at least tell you about it. It's called Revenge of the Radioactive Reporter nineteen ninety. I watched it almost the whole way through, and every couple of minutes some action or line of dialogue was so stupid that I was surprised constantly and even laughed a fair amount, probably an uncomfortable laugh, but laughter. Nonetheless, I'd caught it for free last year in English on YouTube, but I think it's been removed. I hope you can find a decent copy of it, queue it up for someone, and enjoy the odd rid it offers. Thanks for so many years of high quality edutainment on your show. Whenever someone asked me what podcast I listened to, Yours is the first I mentioned, Stephen, Are you not edutained? Well, I have never heard of this film. I'm looking at it now, and I recognize no one involved in it, so I am intrigued on that alone. Yeah, from the director of nothing else that I've seen.
Thank you for the recommendation, Stephen. We'll have to give it a look. Oh, here's a very brief message from a different Stephen.
Stephen All.
The message says is I recently watched Dracula's Dog aka Zoltan colon hound of Dracula and feel it would be right up your guys, Ali, your guys Ali. And then Stephen this difference even just attaches a poster where we get Dracula's dog and kind of the oh, is that a calligraphy font or is that in frocture perhaps you know, it's something that looks like pen strokes. And then we get Dracula standing in a big ball of fire and he's got his arms outstretched and a head of a Doberman or something like that in the foreground, with pure white eyes and fangs.
Yeah.
The the tagline is there's more to the legend than meets the throat.
Very clever.
This has come up on the show several times. We keep getting connections to Dracula's Dog.
How do we get there? I don't remember the exact connections, but yeah, it's come up a number of times. I think I falsely referred to it as Zoltan Colon Dracula's actual dog once, so that that alternative titles stuck in my head. It's just such a ridiculous concept, and I am intrigued. I love I love the Dracula adaptation, but I really love of Dracula adaptations that are multiple steps removed from the source material.
It's absurd, but it's also a logical progression because you get right of Frankenstein, then you get son of Frankenstein, daughter of Dracula. You kind of exhaust all of the immediate family relations there, and so what's next. Are you gonna go uncle of Dracula, No, you go Dracula's dog.
Plus, it also seems like it's maybe a crossover situation here with this film, because it is definitely a vampire film, but it's also like a nineteen seventies doberman'sploitation picture, you know, I feel like there were a lot of scary Doberman's going on in nineteen seventies motion pictures. I guess I'm thinking mostly like the Boys from Brazil, but there are multiple other examples that I feel like some chase James Bond a little later in the nineteen eighties, but.
In Moonrakers Drags You'd played by Michael Lonsdale.
He's got a couple of killer dogs that in that.
I watched a lot of James Bond movies when I was a kid. I don't know if that was a good influencer not probably not. But one thing I really remember being scary was that there's like a lady in moon Breaker who the villain just like sicks his dogs on to kill her.
It was horrifying. Yeah, Like growing up watching that and various other seventies pictures prepared me for the idea that Doberman's were scary monsters. And then when I think it was when I first started seeing my future wife, her parents had I just completely terrifying Doberman to be clear, Like I think, you know a Doberman that had been through a lot before it was adopted, you know, but more afraid of people than I was of it. But I was pretty afraid of it because I found this Doberman rather terrifying, and it seemed to back up everything that these films taught me. To believe about them. That doberman eventually died and they got a new Doberman who was very sweet, So that changed. That helped soothe my understanding of the breed. Dracula's dog. However, Zultan does look like a complete nightmare. This is a bad dog. Yeah.
Does it not matter if you hold out your hand to let him sniff you first, all the etiquette fails.
Yeah, don't invite him in. Oh here's another one, another weird house when this one comes from Dick subject, didn't everyone's ancestors come over on the sandwich? There? Am I missing something? Kudos on your excellent episode on Innerspace. I never thought of it as a weird house type film, but there it was. Ride in plain sight this whole time special thanks to David Streepy. Great job. Yeah, this was a weird house episode where David Streepy friend and fellow podcasts who joined me on the show to discuss let him pick out a film. He picked Innerspace and yeah, Interspace, whatever your memories of it are, it's a pretty weird film. It's pretty bonkers and has a one of the stranger love trying I think ever committed to cinema.
Is that the shrink and go inside a body movie that's intentionally funny, or the one that's not intentionally fun.
Oh, it's it's intentionally funny. It's Joe Dante, so it does you know, it certainly doesn't reach Grimlins two heights of hilarity, but it goes for it. It's it's pretty bonkers and just keeps laying, adding layer upon layer of bonkers. And the reference didn't Everyone's ancestors come over on the sandwich that's from Futurama. We were talking about how we haven't really had a shrink movie in a while with miniaturization and then insert into the human body, but over in previous decades, and I guess this is several decades back now. With a Futurama example, you did have that episode where Fry gets intestinal worms from eating a sandwich that he buys out of a I believe a bathroom condom machine, and he gets the worms. The worms make him super intelligent, and his friends have to go in and like take out the warm colony.
Sorry, I was just trying to think of the name of this other movie. The other shrink can go inside a body in a submarine movie. Is it Fantastic Voyage that's.
Got rockel welch. Yes, Yeah, Fantastic Voyage is the big one, and that's the granddaddy of all miniaturization films. I was a huge fan of that one growing up. I read Isaac Asimov's novelization. Yeah, I mean that without Fantastic Voyage you wouldn't have things like Innerspace obviously, but I haven't seen nineteen sixty six. Is Fantastic Voyage in quite a while? Probably merits a revision. Donald Pleasance is in it. That's right, all right. Well, on that note, we're gonna ahead wrap up this episode of Stuff to Will Your Mind. Listener mail, We'll be back with a new core episode this Thursday. I think it'll I think you'll find it to be a sweet selection. In the meantime, feel free to write in with other thoughts on any of the episodes we talked about here, any of the topics we talked about here past episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Weird House, Artifact, Monster Fact, It's all fair game, as well as recommendations or suggestions for future episodes films for Weird House. All of it is fair game. Let's see a few links to throw out. We're on Instagram, STBYM Podcasts. You can find us there. You can find us on multiple social media accounts. We haven't added any new ones. I know there's a lot of energy out there to sign up for new things. I don't know that I have that energy to sign up for new things, but the accounts that exist are being updated. For Weird House Cinema, we are on letterboxed. You can find us there. Our username is weird House and that's a cool way to keep up with what we're doing on the Weird House Cinema episodes. We have an ongoing list of all the movies we've covered over the years, as well as sometimes a peek ahead at what's coming up next.
Oh hey, and can we add While we're talking about following accounts, it's a great thing to just subscribe to our feed and get all the episodes right in your podcast app if obviously, if you don't want to, you don't have to. But if you're an a la cart listener and you like the show you want to help us out, A good thing you could do would just be subscribe. Make sure you're always getting new episodes when they when they publish.
That's right. That's ultimately more important than all the social media nonsense.
Yes, 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 my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
