STBYM Listener Mail: The Joy of Fish

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, listener mail. My name is Robert Lamb. And I am Joe McCormick. And today we are bringing you some messages from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind email address. If you're a fan of the show and you have never gotten in touch before, you can do so at any time for any reason at contact at StufftoBlowYourMind.com. We give the address out at the end of every episode, but we like to throw it at the top of listener mail episodes. Just to remind people that yes, you can write about whatever you want. Most of the time we get messages with people trying to add something interesting, maybe from their own personal experience or from their own independent research about a topic we've talked about on the show. But really whatever you want is fair game. Contact at StufftoBlowYourMind.com. That's right. If you have recommendations for the future, write in. If you just want to share a picture of your pet, that is also fair game, especially if we've covered that animal recently on the show. And also if you want to join the Discord server, sometimes we read some messages from the Discord server in these episodes, use that email address to get in touch with us and we'll shoot you the link so that you can join us. And really those are the best ways to get in touch with us. We are on some of the socials and if you message us through the socials, there's a chance that message will make it to us. But honestly, we don't tend those gardens as well as we once did. So the best way is always going to be that email address. That's right. Let's see. Rob, you good if we kick things off with some messages about our series on Cartchartner Caverns? Yeah, let's do it. Cartchartner Caverns is a cave system in Arizona that Rob, you visited earlier this year with your family and then we did some episodes on it about its native fat populations and the discovery and conservation history of it. So that was an interesting topic and a lot of people had thoughts about Cartchartner Caverns. So I'm going to do this first message from Angela, subject Caverns. Hey guys, longtime listener love the show. Thanks for such interesting topics. Just finished listening to the first part of your Cartchartner Caverns episode. Man, did that bring back memories for context. I don't like enclosed spaces. I really, really don't like being stuck in the dark, but I'm also a let's go it might be fun kind of person. I can identify with that combination of personality traits, anxious, but also game. It makes for a lot of stressful situations. So Angela says, we were visiting, we were in Kentucky visiting Angela and she doesn't say who I guess friends or family. We were in Kentucky visiting as we were driving. We noticed a sign for Caverns. I made the joke that I'd rather go to a tavern. Okay, this I want to add that this story is starting off like a horror movie, but let's continue and see where it goes. Yeah, preferring taverns to Caverns, right? Regardless, my traveling companions really wanted to go. So I thought, sure, this will be interesting. As we waited for the tour to begin, I started putting my mind at ease remembering that cute Atari spelunking game and trying to remember it's what I'm sure were equally adorable sounds. I had to look this up because I've never played this game, but Rob, I dug up a video of some gameplay and I attached a screenshot in the outline you can look at here. So it's one of these games where, you know, the pixel quality is very, it's, you know, it looks like some some scus on the screen. So you play as a little light blue wad of pixels exploring a cave and there are ladders you can climb and it looks like ropes or vines or something you can swing from. The sounds are very cute. As Angela remembered, it makes that classic little melodic spittoon sound when you pick up a power up. But also I thought this game was funny because it it's not like just biological cave entities. There are ghosts, there are ghosts that float towards you. And I think you can shoot the ghosts with a gun or with something. There's like a projectile you put out eventually makes the ghosts disappear. But the other thing about it that was funny is it keeps looping the first phrase of the Mysterio so Pizzicato? This is a classic piece of music you might recognize from like old silent movie or not silent movies old movies whenever the villain appears. Done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done. And then that translates, I believe, to mysterious Pizza Cat, right? That's exactly what it is. This, imagine this that we've just described is what our claustrophobe Angela is running through her brain for comfort. But then next she says, we were helped into this little boat. Oh, interesting, a boat. Sweet mother of God. As we started entering the cave, we were instructed to lower our heads since it had rained and the water level was high. If you're sitting down, now put your ear against your knee. That was my current situation. I could feel the rock ceiling against my puffy jacket. This must have been the longest 12 seconds of my life. We got off the boat and continued on foot. Man, this just keeps getting rougher and rougher, like a tight spaces, but also water. Suffice to say, the rest of the tour was a piece of cake. The darkness, the enclosed spaces, the creepy prehistoric atmosphere, the eerie silence, the bats. Were there bats? I don't even remember. But what do you know? I actually enjoyed it. From time to time, I would get waves of why as I remembered I was underground, but altogether, I'm glad I got to experience it. And I particularly remember the guide addressing not disturbing the ecosystem, which was an interesting reminder that as far as nature is concerned, we were not really meant to be. There we'll save episode two for another day. Smiley face. Thanks for the cool show, Angela. Now, Angela doesn't say exactly what this cave was or where it was, except that it was in the state of Kentucky. But based on her description, I did some Googling and I feel pretty confident that the cave she's talking about was the is the lost river cave in Bowling Green, Kentucky. So this is a cave that actually does have boat tours. And I watched a video of somebody made of going through the tour of this cave. And it does begin like one of the first things is you get in a boat and you have to go under this low rock ceiling passage. And the guide at this part of the tour, it says, you know, you're not allowed to touch the rocks in the rest of the cave. This is the one place where you can touch the ceiling because it's kind of unavoidable. So encourage people to just like put their hands up and touch it. I guess the water was not as high in the video I was watching as when Angela described it. Yeah, I never visited that particular Kentucky cave. I think I went to a different one when I was a kid. And I did once tour, I think some old salt mines in Germany on like a high school trip where you had to get in a boat. But the ceiling was not that close. It was a little bit roomier, again, being if memory serves a mining operation as opposed to a naturally formed cavern. So there's a funny thing about the Lost River Cave, if this is in fact the one that Angela is talking about, and I'm pretty sure it is, because in this case, it's funny that you say you would rather go to a tavern than a cavern. The Lost River Cave once literally was basically a tavern, not not in the, you know, not in the tavern in sense of like Dungeons and Dragons tavern, but it was a place to drink, party and get down. So I was reading about this in a local history article by Teelya Butler for WNKY Kentucky. According to local lore, during the prohibition era, this cave was used for smuggling liquor, but by the 1930s, it had become one of the most famous nightclubs in the country called the Cavern Nightclub. The article calls it, quote, the coolest place to be both above and below ground. And there's a double meaning of coolest place there because Billboard magazine called it the only air conditioned nightclub in the United States. This is because of the natural temperature control offered by the cave. You know, cave air tends to be pretty stable and temperature year round, usually somewhere around the upper fifties Fahrenheit. The article goes on to describe a bit of its history saying, quote, it was Jimmy Stewart's publicity. Now that's not Jimmy Stewart, James. That's not the actor, not the guy from Vertigo and Rear Window. This is different, a bowling green Jimmy Stewart, quote, it was Jimmy Stewart's publicity, the bowling green businessman who owned the club from 1934 to 1949 that turned the club into a swinging place. Throughout the big band jazz era of the 1940s, many famous musicians and singers performed at the Cavern Nightclub. Big names like Dina Shore and Francis Craig with his NBC Orchestra could be heard from the cave's bandstand. In those days, club partygoers could purchase a deluxe ice bowl with whiskey hidden inside for just two dollars. Oh, wow. So the article goes on to describe how eventually the club declined in popularity in part, I think because they built a new highway system that meant a lot of the traffic that used to go near it wasn't passing by as much anymore. So there was that also just changes in, you know, like musical taste. Jazz clubs weren't as popular by the 1960s. So if you go there today, you can still see the bar and stage area. And I think it may sometimes be used for events today. But but yeah, a lot of it's just this like cave nature boat tour sort of thing. Now, speaking of caves used for music up in Grundy County, Tennessee, you've got the caverns. Joe, have you ever been to a show there? I have. I have. Yeah, I have. I've been to a show there. Who did you see and what was it like? I do not want to speak ill of the musician I saw there. It's actually it was I could tell it was a great place to see a show. But the show I saw was not actually fell asleep while I was there. Sometimes it's good. It depends who you're seeing. Like if you're seeing, you know, particularly ambient group, you know, sometimes I mean not awful a little bit and that's fine. It wasn't ambient. It was like it was like a bluegrass show. And I mean, I like bluegrass music, but it was just not my favorite artist. It was a rather a somnolent experience experience. But yeah, but I would like to go back there someday to see something I'm more jazzed about. Like jazz, yeah, jazz, which would brand of jazz would be appropriate for a cavern environment? I don't know. I guess Dynashore is not playing anymore. All right, let's see what's next in the old mail bag. This one comes to us from Bill. Bill writes Robin Joe. Thank you for entertaining and educating me for close to a decade now. I was so glad to hear you take on Cartner Caverns, a wonderful place. I visited it once many years ago and was just thinking about returning after recently checking out Carl's Bad Caverns, I'd recommended, and feeling the draw back to my caving days. Lehman Caves in Great Basin National Park is also phenomenal with unique formations called shields that are a bit of a mystery. Now, in Bill's email, he includes a link out to some National Parks page information about these shield formations in Lehman Caves. Rob, I've just got a picture for you to look at here. Those are, these are pretty interesting. You know what they look like? They look like gigantic oyster mushrooms. They do giant stone mushrooms. Yeah. All right. Well, Bill continues here talking about the Lehman Caves here. He says the area has both wild caves, minimal human trace, and a great user-friendly tour where their motto 100 years ago was, if you can break it, you can take it. Oh, no. Obviously not great considering where a cave conservation has gone. But that certainly tracks with what happened with a lot of these early showcades. Yeah. He continues, as for Joe's request of inside the mind of a cave, or yes, exploring a new canyon or cave where humans may never have been is quite the attraction in both caving and canyoneering. I have had moments where I needed to do the exhale trick that Robert mentioned in order to continue through tight spots. As you both stated, please, everyone be careful out there. As I often say in guiding, one must have three levels of trust in these sorts of adventures, trust in yourself and your abilities, trust in your partners, and trust in your gear. I like to think of slot canyoneering as caving with a sunroof. A great way to explore the skinnies without the full commitment of spelunking. If you ever wish to experience anything involving via ferrata, canyoneering, or various levels of adventure in the deserts southwest, hit me up, Bill. Well, thank you, Bill. By the way, I just wanted to add one more note about the shield cave formations that Bill was talking about in that, is it the Lehman Caves in Great Basin National Park. So the page that Bill linked to is a National Parks Information page, and it's got a big picture of the one that's called the Parachute Formation in Lehman Caves. And much like some of the formations we were talking about in the Cartchartner Caverns episode, apparently the exactly how the shield formations come together is not fully understood. I think there are some leading ideas, but it's not fully settled. And the page says, quote, although cave shield formation is still puzzling, it's hypothesized that cave shields form as extensions of joints or cracks in the floor, wall, and ceiling. So the idea is that you've got hydrostatic pressure acting on the calcium or calcite rich water that is inside the stone that surrounds the cave. And then the water kind of bleeds out at these joints or these cracks in the walls and floor. And then, of course, the same process that we talked about in those episodes happens. You know, it loses carbon dioxide and precipitates calcite. Fascinating. And again, as we discussed in that episode, I think it's just so amazing that we have these cave environments and these amazing formations, and mysteries remain regarding how these things have formed. You know, we think it's easy to make the mistake of thinking, well, it's literally set in stone. It's, you know, it's there. We can figure it out. But we're not completely sure on some of these things. And again, especially, it's especially exciting with these living caves where the rock is still forming and reforming, breaking, repairing itself and so forth. It's almost like a living thing. All right. Are you cool if I do this message from Chris? Yeah, let's have it. Subject line, this is the way in. This email begins with an epigraph. Classy. Nice. Quote, presently they were under the shadow and here in the midst of it, they saw the opening of a cave. This is the way in, said Gollum softly. I think this is from when Gollum is leading Sam and Frodo into Shelob's lair. And which book is that? Is that Two Towers or Return of the King? I'm always a little shaky on this because then I also can't remember how they shuffled things around in the film versions. Yeah. Yeah. I think they put, if I'm remembering correctly, this might happen in the book, the Two Towers, but they put it in the movie Return of the King. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Tolkien fans, correct me if I'm wrong. And I know you will. Anyway, this message goes on. Good day, Robert, Joe and JJ. Writing today in response to your excellent episodes on Cartchner Caverns. Listen slash watched with my kids on Netflix. Side note, they are very happy to put a face with the voice after all the time listening with me. They would like you to know that you both look way different than they thought. Crying, laughing, emoji. I mean, I would be surprised at this point if anyone were to say, you look exactly as we imagined. As a family, we have visited caves together before in Kentucky at Mammoth Cave, where we saw Helik Tites and Cave Popcorn, and Missouri at Merrimack Caves and Onondaga Cave. While all are unique in their own way, your discussion about how the two cavern, sorry, the two cavern, cavers weighed their options for Cartchner Caverns really struck me as interesting in regards to the two Missouri Caves I mentioned. On one hand, you have Merrimack Caves, which if not the most has to be up there as the most commercialized cave in the world. As if you have driven anywhere in the Midwest, you may have seen billboards for it, noting its location right off Route 66. On the other hand, you have the Onondaga Cave, which has a long history of land disputes and ownership changes, but has been managed as a Missouri State Park since 1982. For my money, I prefer Onondaga and highly recommend a visit if able. It has some wonderful and unique features such as the Lily Padroom, sans frogs though. Thanks as always for your episodes, Chris. And then Rob, for you to look at in the outline, it pulled in some pictures of the Lily Padroom at Onondaga Cave. That is beautiful. Quite beautiful. So it has a, I don't know what you call this in a cave, like a lake or a pond inside the cave. It looks like some standing water. And then there are these formations that rise just above the surface of the water. And I don't know exactly what you call those or how they're formed, but yeah, they look kind of like Lily Pads floating on the surface. Very cool. Yeah. All right. Well, I appreciate that field report and the epigraph. Yeah, very classic. All right. Let's see. What else do we have in here in the old mail bag? Let's see. All right. This next one comes to us from Sheldine, subject line, cave conservation. She writes, Hey guys, I hope you're well. I don't know if that's responding to anything in particular. Is it a question mark? Yeah. Anyway, she continues. I wanted to tell you about my admittedly limited experience with cave conservation in South Africa. Probably the most famous tourist caves in South Africa are the Congo caves in Oatshorn. I think every school kid I know, including my own, do a school tour to Oatshorn to see the crocodiles, ostriches and Kengo caves. When I went, it must have been in 1987 because I was 11 or 12. Back then, there was a lot more stage dressing in the caves. In the big cave you enter into, first, there's a huge formation called the organ pipes. And when I was a kid, they turned off all the lights in the cave and lit up the formation with colored lights and played loud dramatic organ music. The whole cavern floor had been filled in with clay to make it flat. And they used to hold concerts in there. I remember seeing hundreds of fold up chairs in one area. What would be your favorite organ song to hear in a cave, Rob? I guess I would have to say Phantom of the Opera music or most thinking back to Dr. Fives. I had to look it up, but it's Mindelson. Seem to be a favorite of the abominable Dr. Fives. So I might put it in a request for that. I could go for a little cave treatment in the Garden of Eden by Iran Butterfly. There you go. That's a good one. All right, as an aside for Joe, as part of this little show, they have a tiny oil nap, now electric, to give people an idea of how little light that first explorer of the cave had available. It was barely anything in the dark. Going back to that experience in the 80s, I recall the air being moist, but not uncomfortable, and that the walls and formations glittered. Fast forward to 1999. My husband and I went back while on honeymoon, and I was intrigued at how the tour had taken on a more ecological bent and the changes to the caves. They had removed all the unnecessary lights and even pointed out a spot where black algae had infested a section of the cave wall. This sort of thing, I think we talked about this in our episodes, like this is where human contact can cause this to grow, or certainly naturally occurring contact via bats. They explained that the lights encourage the growth of the algae, so much like Rob described, the lights switch off automatically to limit this. They also explained how hard it is to remove or kill the algae without damaging the cave. We went back again in 2015, this time with our kids, and what struck me was the humidity and the dullness of the caves. There's no more glitter on the walls and formations. They do seem to have managed to control the algae, but I think the damage of thousands of humans is visible in the overwhelming brownness of the caves now. There are two other cave systems, imaginatively named Kengo 2 and 3, which are off limits to the public. The photos I've seen of them taken in the 70s are beautiful. The formations are white. Also of note is that the Kengo caves are still living as well. The formations are still growing despite the tourism and human damage. I could ramble on for ages, but this email is already quite long. Love you guys. My longtime ear friends keep up the great work. Best wishes, Sheldi. Thank you, Sheldi. Thanks for writing in. I love hearing about these different caves around the world. They're different. Obviously, they're naturally occurring cave systems everywhere you go. There are a number of cave systems that are showcased to some degree and are open to the public. I really have enjoyed hearing from listeners about these. Okay, this next message is from David. David says, Hi, Robert and Joe. Just listen to the first episode about the Karchner Caverns and wanted to share my favorite cave experience. I'm a French horn player, player of the French horn, not a French horn player, player of the French horn and attend as many workshops as I can to stay in touch with other horn players, experience performances of new music for horn and of course, for horn, not for the horn, new music for horn and of course, play with all of the new equipment for hornists brought by exhibitors. I've never heard hornists before. I like that. David, I'm something of a French horn player myself or I used to be. Really? I was a bad French horn player in high school, but I have had my hand in a number of French horns. Yes. I was a bad trumpet player in middle school. I was also a bad trumpet player. I think I had, I probably did not have the determination, but I also don't think I had the lips for these instruments looking back on it. I'm going to reflect on my own experiences and say, I think a big problem was I did not practice enough because it was not very enjoyable to practice a trumpet by myself alone at home. I got the feeling that other members of the house did not like that either. That's always one of the challenges with a musical instrument in the house for sure. Anyway, the message goes on to say these are usually, oh, okay, the experiences, the horn-related experiences. These are usually regional affairs, but in 2025, the International Horn Symposium was hosted by James Madison University in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, with it being so close to my home in North Carolina, I had to attend. One of the add-on opportunities for symposium attendees was a tour of the nearby Loure Caverns. This cave system is known for the great stalact pipe organ, a lithophone that produces sound when beater strikes stalactites and stalagmites of different sizes. We were lucky enough to add some additional music to the space. The group of right around 50 of us horn players brought, I wish this email would continue with hornists, the whole way through. I'm going to say hornists. 50 of us hornists brought our horns on the tour. When we reached the cathedral room where the organ keyboard is located, we stopped and performed two pieces. One was written to be premiered on that day in that space with the specific intention of using the cave itself as a musical tool, incorporating the reverberation of the space. The second was a beautiful arrangement that combined the tune Shenandoah with the simple gifts melody from Copeland's Appalachian Spring. Both were fitting for the event and location. 50 horn players make an incredible sound, and that was multiplied by the novelty of playing in such a beautiful and unique space, and of course, by the way the space affected the sound. With the event being open to everyone of all backgrounds and skill levels, and with us playing after a few hours of driving and walking without a warm-up, the performance wasn't spotless. But I'm pretty sure no one there cared the pickup nature of a world premiere by a group of people who had never played together until a couple of days beforehand, after just two or three short rehearsals with our music taped to each other's backs since we couldn't bring music stands into the caverns, seemed just right. And then David includes a link to a YouTube video of the performance with some notes about, I don't know, some self-review, I guess. Then David says, thanks for what you do. I've listened to every episode since sometime in 2018, and I love getting denurred out and explore wild topics along with you. Then there's a PS. David says, sorry for the additional email, but recounting this experience made me recall the episode of yours that comes to mind most often. When performing with ensembles, usually either very large ensembles due to sheer scope and size, or small chamber ensembles in which all of the musicians are very comfortable playing with and following one another, your episode on Kamamuda often comes to mind. The more I remember that bit of podcasting, the better I know a rehearsal or show has gone. Oh, that's sweet to hear. Yeah. Kamamuda being a name that some people coined to describe a unique kind of togetherness emotion. Was this possibly the Here Comes the Warm Feels episode from 2020? Could be that, yeah. Yeah, I think that might be the one. It's in the archives, so if anyone wants to look that one up, just go to wherever you get your podcast and you can dig it out of the earth there. Oh, and I didn't mention this, but David, I did click through. I watched some of the video with the music and it did sound really lovely. I liked the original composition in the first half with the kind of like mounting overlapping sounding of the different horns. I thought it was very beautiful. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, horn music is not the first thing that I would think about concerning music in the caves. I don't know. I guess it seems like I would want something very minimal, because I just imagine things getting very loud very quickly in such an enclosed space, but maybe part of that's just my imagination. I hear drums, drums in the deep. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, Rob, you want to do some responses to our series on the Suvaro cactus? Sure. Yeah, this one comes to us from Alex's title Suvaro song. Hey, dudes, first time, long time. Just started listening to the episode on the Suvaro cactus, and I thought for sure you guys would mention the song Ain't No Suvaro in Texas by the inimitable Reverend Horton Heate when I heard Joe start to introduce a song that mentions the cactus. I thought for sure that was what was coming. The song is an alarmingly apt counterpoint to you guys' episode discussing the actual habitat of the species and its hyperbolic association with all arid landscapes. The song is also a complete bop and is indispensable if you're going to be drinking cold beers on a hot day. I hope it would serve to acquaint the show with the honorable Reverend Horton Heate as a bastion of science and culture in America. Huge fan, love weird house, you guys are the best. Thank you, Alex. I was not familiar with the song. I looked it up. It's a bop. I like it. Yeah. The main theme of the song is about how in all the movies, like there's a line that says, Hollywood and misinformed artists made the Suvaro a Texas icon, but the Suvaro only grows in Arizona where people got them out on their lawn. I don't know. It sounds more artful actually when he sings it than when I just phrased it there. But the chorus of the song goes, there ain't no Suvaro in Texas. It's not the kind of cactus we got, but somehow we're stuck with this image and changing it is going to take a lot. Folks in Mexico and Arizona are probably glad that I've cleared the air. There ain't no Suvaro in Texas, but we've sure got a lot of prickly pear. Yeah, I don't know that I had heard this song before. Occasionally, we'll hear the Reverend Horton Heate in like, if I'm listening to like a radio station of Psycho Billy. You know, it's kind of a, they're kind of a mainstay of Psycho Billy, I'm to understand, but I don't, but largely I don't really know myself around the genre. I just have sometimes put it on in the background. Okay, this next message is from Tyler. Tyler says, Hey, pals, I'm just starting the first episode on the Suvaro and Joe mentions he thought they looked like an antenna. Well, depending on where you are, the Suvaro you are looking at might be an antenna. A lot of cell phone towers in Southern Arizona are made to look like Suvaros. This would be hilarious if they put Suvaro's cell phone towers in Texas. Yeah, just keep the insult going. Presumably to disguise an eyesore, but most of the towers aren't fooling anyone and are more of a distraction than an actual tower would be. Yeah, I can absolutely back this up from my time spent in Arizona. But then the rest of my time spent in Georgia, we of course have the big fake cell towers that are disguised as trees as well, that are not fooling anyone. So this just seems to be a standard tactic. I don't know what else they disguise them as in other parts of the world. They should just go whole hog, actually not just Texas. They should do Suvaro cell towers nationwide. Why not? Suvaro cell towers in Vermont. There you go. Nobody's believing it anyway. Just make it look like some sort of a crazy roadside attraction. The email goes on also regarding the story about the guy that was crushed by a Suvaro. This is the guy who was crushed by a Suvaro after shooting it. He shot it with a shotgun and then it fell on him and killed him. This was in the 1980s. Tyler says, the irony of the story is that he set out to destroy a protected species that ultimately was his undoing. It is illegal to remove or damage a Suvaro. Even on your own property, you need a permit and most of the time, they will try to relocate it rather than cut it down. This process can be costly and dangerous. As noted in the story, Suvaro sections are very heavy and prone to breaking off. If you haven't come across crested Suvaros in your research, I suggest looking them up. They're pretty neat. I think the prevailing theory for why they happen is due to frost damage. Well, Tyler, as you probably know now, in the later parts of that series, we did get into crested Suvaros. I hope you enjoyed that segment. Finally, Tyler says, thanks for all the years of edutainment. Oh, what an accusation. Tyler. Then there's a PS, Hayipals, again, forgot to mention, I am born and raised in Tucson. Many of the old Westerns you referenced, the Westerns that wherever they are set in the American West, they have Suvaros in them. Tyler says, many of them were filmed just to the West in a little studio that is now a theme part called Old Tucson Studios. If you had any questions about Suvaros or the Sonoran Desert Area, be happy to answer them to the best of my ability. Tyler, thank you, Tyler. Awesome. As always, we appreciate the field reports. Very good. Very good. All right. Here's another one. This one comes to us from Chris, a subject line, Malik Acid. Chris says, I've never heard of Malik Acid before, but I've listened to Suvaro Part 2 and saw this TikTok on the same day. It is not my content, and I'm not expecting you to share anything on the show, but I found this an interesting extra note on the Malik Acid powder you mentioned in the episode. It's probably much more widely used than any of us know or expected. Love the show and you guys and looking forward to many more. Chris. Chris includes a link to a video along with the email. This is picking up in our discussion about a crazulation acid metabolism in the Suvaro cactus that it involves the use of this compound called Malik Acid. We were talking about its use in plant metabolism, but then also talking about how it's actually a very familiar flavor to most listeners, that it's part of what gives the distinctive flavor of tartness in apples. I think the name of Malik Acid comes from apple acid, but it's in tons of different plants. A lot of sour flavors and fruits you recognize are going to be a form of Malik Acid, but there are other acid compounds in fruits as well. You've got citric acid and citrus fruits and so on. We also talked in a funny twist about how some salt and vinegar potato chips use Malik Acid powder as one of the tart components, which is funny because you would think they would use a vinegar flavor, but actually it's a different acid. Anyway, in this video, it's a TikTok video of a candy maker account called At Jeff's Candy Shop. This guy in the video says he's trying to make a hard candy similar to, I don't know if I think maybe it's a now discontinued candy called Altoids Orange Sours. You ever have these, Rob? I don't know that I did, but certainly when it comes to hard candies, the orange flavored ones have always been my preference. Even if I'm just going, just flavor in general, if I'm going for like a Tums, I'm going to go for the orange ones first. I like orange too. Yeah. Yeah. Even if it just tastes like chalk, if it's orange chalk, I'm in. Orange Gatorade. So anyway, in this video, the guy boils the sugar syrup and he pours it out on a table. It starts to cool and thicken up. And as it's doing that, he folds in first citric acid powder for one sour element, and then he keeps folding it to mix it all around inside the candy. Then he stretches it out on a candy hook to incorporate air, then runs it through a crank press to stamp it out into these little ball shapes that are going to be the final shape. And then once all of the little pellet sized candies are cool, the final thing he does is he tosses them inside a container with powdered malic acid. So that's the sour white powder on the outside. So interesting that this sour candy has two different sour flavor elements. It's got citric acid mixed in with the sugar syrup, and then it's got malic acid dusted on the outside. Fascinating. You know, I had to do a quick search because I don't make as many Tiki drinks as I used to, but I was looking around online. I noticed that there are some online recipes that call for malic acid. But I also looked in my Beach Bum Berry app, which has all the classic recipes. And I did just a quick search here for malic and nothing came up. So I presume this is more of a relatively modern use of an ingredient in Tiki recipes. I mean, I don't think powdered malic acid is going to be a standard thing in many cooks or mixologist pantries. That's like more of either an industrial ingredient or maybe for your advanced home molecular gastronomist or something. That must be a molecular gastronomy hobbyist and so forth. I mean, not like there's anything all that crazy about it. It just doesn't seem like a commonly used ingredient in the home or so at the industrial school. Yeah, I'd never run across it in a recipe before. And I'm always running across things in recipes that I go, well, I don't have that. What's the substitute for that? But I've never run across that one. I mean, it's kind of like how sodium citrate is something that's going to be in tons of industrially produced foods, but is not going to be in many people's home pantries. Right. Right. Yeah. All right. Let's see. We have some more Saguaro action here. And the subject line here is teenage mutant ninja cactus. Oh, just to note that this message is from a listener who gave both a real name, but then also mentioned an alias. And I wasn't sure which one they wanted us to use for the email. So we're just going to say anonymous listener for now. Right. Right. We don't want to blow your cover, but one way or the other. So yeah, this includes an image of the thing we're talking about here. The author writes, Hello again, gentlemen. Just wanted to share a comic drawn in part by my middle school art teacher, circa 92 fun stuff. I haven't chimed in for a while. 2025 was a tough year. Among other things, I lost my dog Ichabod. I wrote you once about the connection between his name and the Ark of the Covenant, but I remain a loyal listener and I want you to know how much I appreciate you being a part of my life through thick and thin. And after this, he includes a personal message about his intent to hike the Appalachian Trail. So good luck with that. But yes, this is a comic book and it is titled Saguaro. Saguari. It is a Saguaro textured hero. It looks like Iceman from the X-Men. Is Iceman what he's called? Yeah, there's Iceman. It looks kind of like Iceman from the X-Men except he's green and covered in spines. Yeah, he looks like a number of different comic book characters. Whatever your sort of naked bald guy comic book character is, be it Vision or any of these sorts of characters, it's this except he's all cactus. So yeah, pretty cool. Reminds me of some of the some of the different comic books that I'll see for sale in like little museums through the Southwest. And a lot of times these are written by Indigenous comic book artists and there's always some sort of the unique local and or traditional spin on comic book motifs, which I think is really cool. Okay, next message comes from Mike. This is another follow up on our long running Raven Riding Desk conundrum. So Mike says, was listening to the newest listener mail this morning, then catching up on my comics later in the day and came across this random panel in a recent issue of Batman slash Superman colon worlds finest issue 48. And then in the panel, it is a hero. I actually don't know who this is, Rob, you're gonna have to tell me might be owl man without actually looking up the issue in question. I get an owl man vibe off of this design. Okay. Yeah, don't know who it is, but the hero in a mask says, this idiot thought it would be wise to taunt me quote, why is a Raven like a writing desk? And then Mike says the issue does not offer any answers for it either. Lol. Well, yeah, as we discussed, it is for the most part a riddle without answer. By the way, and Mike, I appreciate sitting this in this is great. But but I'd mentioned in the previous episodes that I recall this particular riddle from the 1982 animated film, The Last Unicorn. But then later on, I expressed doubt as to whether I actually heard it in that movie. And maybe I was just misremembering it, given the Lewis Carroll roots of the thing. But I looked it up and I can confirm that yes, this riddle is referenced without answer in The Last Unicorn. Nice. And remember the previous listener who wrote in and included the the list of answers people had come up with for it, even though it's not supposed to have an answer. I think the clean, the tidiest one was because Po wrote on both. Yes, that was pretty good. Let's see now. Oh, Rob, we have next up, if you're feeling brave, we have a Pokemon intensive message. Do you have the fortitude for this intense dive into Pokemon lore? Yeah, I guess so. Let's do it. Let's see what we got. This is from Jeff. Take it. Take it. Oh, okay. All right. You want me to read it? Oh, no, no, either way. Either way, I could. No, I'm happy to. Here we go. This one. Yeah, this one is titled Monsters for your Pocket. Okay. Hey, guys, I accumulated some Pokemon related thoughts after listening to recent his shows. I agree with Rob that Pokemon Concierge on Netflix is great. It doesn't have the depth of a Kiki's delivery service. That of course is the excellent Miyazaki film. And you said your kiddo is a big fan of that one now, right? One of my daughter's favorite movies. She's seen it a bazillion times now. And she was Kiki for Halloween. Well, if you want to introduce some Pokemon, this might be the way to go. It is inevitable. One would assume. Well, anyway, so the Jeff says it's no Kiki's delivery service quote, but it does have a little ghibli flavor, including the appreciation of nature and the joy of flight. I would argue that it's the best Pokemon media ever created. But then I was always more excited about the world's ecology and biology, not so much the fighting. I prefer the tangential world building weird stuff like the Detective Pikachu movie. I totally agree there. Again, we may watch that one on Weird House eventually. I really enjoyed that one. Concierge is aggressively pleasant and easily digestible, a very short series of very short episodes that just makes you feel good. Now, I'm sorry, I think we're probably going to be recreating an exchange that already happened in earlier episodes, but I don't remember the answer. Is Pokemon Concierge about an actual Concierge like at a hotel? Yes, yes, yes, where Pokemon creatures come for vacations. And it's her job to make sure they're well looked after and I think that they don't get in fights and stuff. So it's extremely comfy. And if memory serves, it's also kind of, I don't know if it's authentic stop motion, but at least has that style. So it's kind of a rub the fur situation, where you literally want to rub the fur of the creatures. Beautiful. Okay, so Jeff continues, with more just Pokemon thoughts here, Pokemon Snap was a really fun game in which the point was to take pictures of Pokemon in nature. It really gave me the feeling of what it might be like to go on vacation in their universe. Photos were scored on framing composition, whether you captured interesting behavior, rare species, etc. No battles. This was the height of Pokemon fever. So they even had kiosks in the real world where you could bring favorite photos from your game and print up color stickers and such. Was this available for the Nintendo 64? I don't know. I had a Nintendo 64, but again, I missed the boat on all the Pokemon stuff, so I was just oblivious if it was. Okay, JJ just chimed in to say almost positive it was on the N64. So I think I'm remembering this game correctly. I think my roommates in college had this game. Okay, cool. Yeah. Jeff continues, my favorite episode of the classic anime were the ones where they ditched the main plotline entirely, such as the one that showed what Professor Oak is doing all day, running experiments, performing statistical research, care and feeding of his Pokemon test subjects, etc. It's a common theme in the game and the shows that when Pokemon are discarded, they are transferred to Oak's lab. This episode showed what happened on the other side of those transactions and was proof that they weren't just sent to quote a farm upstate. Oh, okay. That's nice to like pick up on loose ends so people don't assume the worst. Yes. In another episode, the human heroes and villains are separated from their Pokemon who are marooned on an island. Meowth, a masterless Pokemon who chooses to be villainous, tries to rally the villain's Pokemon to fight the hero's team, arguing that as bad guys, they should stick together. This leads to a philosophical debate among the little monsters with the other bad Pokemon insisting that Pokemon are neither inherently good nor evil, and they only fight to please their masters. And there was no way that they were going to attack their brothers just to please some third party jerk trying to stir up trouble. I think they all end up having snacks around a campfire or something like that. Is a masterless Pokemon kind of like a Ronan? I guess so. The Pokemon human relationship certainly raises a lot of questions, which again, I like this is kind of one of the interesting parts about the world building in Detective Pikachu where it kind of, it's almost like, like clearly they took some inspiration from Blade Runner and they're sort of like this, how do humans and replicants live alongside each other? How do Pokemons and humans live alongside each other? That sort of thing. But there's no Blade Runner out there icing Pokemon in the street. Oh, that's good. So just go ahead and prepare everyone for that. They don't have a Voight comp test. No, there's one really key scene where a Pokemon is interrogated. Mewtwo, I'll tell you about Mewtwo. All right, Jeff continues, one thing that's never been clear to me. Are there any regular animals in their universe? I have asked my child this as well. The answer was Wishawashi, but perhaps not. Anyway, Jeff continues, says, I don't remember ever seeing anyone with a regular dog or cat as a pet, though there are many dog and cat Pokemon analogs. And in fact, many species are explicitly described in relation to mundane animals. Whenever they eat on the show, the food seems to be vegetarian. Perhaps the notion of slaughtering and consuming creatures who can follow complex instructions and pronounce their own names was just completely beyond the pale in their world. Oh, yeah, I can imagine that. So if they have Pokemon instead of animals and the Pokemon are a little too lovable, you can't eat any of them. Yeah, really, the idea of eating a Pokemon is a grotesque. I think we can all agree. Back when it, the Jeff continues, back when it was all the rage, I ran into a young guy playing Pokemon Go in a park. He had just caught his favorite, a Corsola, a coral-based species that can only survive in clean water. He was excited because he was about to start undergraduate marine science work protecting real-life coral species from bleaching due to climate change. He said he didn't know if he would have been on this path in life, if not for a Corsola. That's intense. That is that. I'd love to hear that. So I believe the franchise, Jeff continues, actually has some positive effect, hopefully enough to counter its merch contribution to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Wow. Well, I feel like we've heard enough from different listeners in this regard that I'm pretty confident it really does drive people to go into the biological sciences and zoology. Especially, I guess. We heard from the other listener who runs the Pokemon-themed wildlife camps for kids. I'm sold on the idea. It really does get kids in the biological creature orientation space. Yeah. I mean, it's like fascination with monsters or mythology. All these things activate the wonder centers of the brain. We can have wonder about the fantastic and the imagined, but we can have equal and even greater amounts of wonder about the natural world. These things are interconnected. Oh, let's see. But Jeff is not done. Jeff also chimes in on polywater. Says on a related note, polywater doesn't seem to have been completely eliminated. Well, Jeff, polywater syndrome doesn't seem to have been completely... Oh, polywater syndrome. I'm sorry. I just read the email. I was imagining polywater is actually real. There's some of it out there, and we have to eliminate it. It is not real. To explain, Jeff links to a University of Michigan Press release headline, Nitrile and Latex Gloves May Cause Overestimation of Microplastics University of Michigan Study Reveals. To read a bit from the top of this article, quote, Nitrile and Latex Gloves that scientists wear while they are measuring microplastics may lead to a potential overestimation of the tiny pollutants according to a University of Michigan study. The study found that gloves may unintentionally contaminate lab equipment scientists use to measure microplastics in air, water, and other samples with non-plastic particles called stirrates. University of Michigan researchers Madeline Clough and Ann McNeill suggest clean room gloves, which release fewer particulates, be worn instead. So the similarity to the polywater issue here would be that if these researchers are correct, simple contamination problems, contamination of samples is contributing to a trend or perception in recent research. That perception is about the abundance of microplastics in the environment. But I think even if these critics of microplastics research are correct, there is a major difference in both quality and quantity of the misdirection that follows from that contamination. So this is not arguing. The researchers here are not arguing that there is no proliferation of microplastics in the environment, just that it is somewhat overestimated by contamination issues caused by lab gloves. So they're not at all suggesting that microplastics are a wholly invented imaginary substance like polywater turned out to be. To read from the article, this is quoting Ann McNeill, the senior author of the study and a University of Michigan professor of chemistry, macromolecular science and engineering. McNeill says, quote, we may be overestimating microplastics, but there should be none. There's still a lot out there and that's the problem. Yeah, very important distress here, especially given how easily a paper like this can be misconstrued in the some corners of the media, where if there's some correction on something that was previously thought, well, then it's spun as a hoax or some sort of nefarious plot to get you to buy less plastic, that sort of thing. Yeah, that's a really good point. Motivated parties often like to take research like this that expresses any skepticism or correction of a trend in research as proof that the entire trend in research is false, which is not the case here. Was the case for polywater does not appear to at all be the case for microplastics. They're real. All right. Well, Jeff closes out this email by saying, thanks again for providing such varied and weird content. Your shows have been helping to distract me as I recover from injury. You provide an excellent service to us all. Jeff. I wish you a speedy recovery, Jeff. Absolutely. Rural Britain, you've suffered too long. Your days of sluggish broadband are over. We're connecting rural homes to full fiber with thousands more joining every month. Five giga versus expanding before my very eyes. Faster broadband for rural Britain from only 19 pounds per month. Season sees apply. 18 month contract prices may rise during contract. Check availability at giga clear dot com. Co-op members now get prices matched to Audi. Hold on. No way. Okay, then. So co-op members now get everyday essentials price matched to Audi. Sign up and start saving co-op owned by you, right by you. I wasn't expecting that. Court member prices matched versus comparable selected products at Audi GB. Court membership required. Court refusal to only see court.co.uk slash Audi price match. All right. Well, you know, Joe, I'm at 6% battery on my laptop here. Let's do a little weird house before everything dies on me. Okay. Let's wrap it up. Take your pick of any of the weird house messages. Oh, let's see. There's some good ones here. Some good recommendations here for films that we have not watched yet. Let's just see where my cursor lands. This one comes to us from LF. LF says, Hey, have you guys done what dreams may come? I saw it a very long time ago, probably 20 years, but it stayed with me to this day. Not horror exactly, but more about the horrors of real life and how one man goes about dealing with it. Thanks. No, we have not done it on the show and I've never seen this movie. Oh, yeah. I saw it in theaters when it came out. Of course, has the late great Robin Williams based on Matheson work. And if my memory is correct, Werner Herzog has a cameo in it. And it is essentially a harrowing of hell, sort of a story, venturing into the underworld in search of lost loved ones, that sort of thing. Oh, kind of Orphic tale. Yeah. Okay, I'm going to do this message from Scott because it also pertains to Richard Matheson. So this was a response to our episode on the last man on Earth starring Vincent Price, the adaptation of Matheson's I Am Legend. Scott says, Thank you so much for covering I Am Legend on Weird House. Richard Matheson's novel is one of my all-time favorites and your discussion reminded me that it has been an inexcusable length of time since my last reread. I found your comparison of the ending's tone interesting. You offered variations on two views for the ending of the movie. Number one, the end is bleak because it is the end of real humanity with the death of Morgan as the last man. And two, it's an uplifting end because the monster is gone and the new people can get on with creating the new civilization. I offer a third view. It is a depressing ending because the new society reveals itself to be subject to the same prejudices and hatred as the old one. In the movie version, when they kill Morgan, they destroy the hope of a true cure for the disease, his blood as the source of antibodies. Their fear and desire for vengeance doom them to continue the stopgap treatment they've been using to keep the disease at bay. The novel does not include any of the ideas that Morgan's blood has curative properties, but the depressing ending is still there because of the ferocity with which the living infected slaughter the undead vampires when they come to seize Morgan and the loathing with which he's treated while held captive before his execution. The Wikipedia article states it as quote, fiendish glee which matches my recollection of the scenes in the novel. In the end, the new society is subject to the same prejudices, fear, hatred and violence toward the other as humanity has always been, be they undead vampires or Morgan. Scott. Yeah, that's an interesting view that so there are a new people in a way and so in one sense we're we're predisposed toward their success because they're people if you accept them as people like they are the people now, but also they're people in all the bad ways. Scott. Yeah, and it's been a while since I've seen the Omega man, but they lean into this a bit more by having the new people as mutants is kind of like ghouls, kind of like the mutants that live underneath the planet of the apes. And they're essentially like carrying out like an anti technology inquisition as well. So yeah, very much summoning up these ideas of like, yep, these are the new people. Same problems as with the old people. Nice. But maybe just maybe Chuck Heston will give his life to save everybody. We'll see. We may come back and discuss a Mega Man in full at some point in the future. Okay, you want to do one more? Yeah, let's see. What do we got? We got some more mentions of films. Yeah, here's one from Dean. Hey guys, just sending you some recommendations for Weird House. Two I've mentioned before. First, encounters of the spooky kind, which you guys have been talking about featuring since you covered Mr. Vampire back in 2021. 2021. Come on guys. Then there's latitude zero, a kooky one featuring Christopher Lee. Then two more, the angry red planet and the monolith monsters. We've mentioned monolith monsters for sure on the show. And I think we've mentioned angry red planet. Think about it. And thanks for the show, Dean. Well, Dean, thanks for, I like it when people keep writing in about shows. Don't let us forget the ones that we need to cover. Yeah. Encounters of the spooky kind is a very important film in the history of this sort of supernatural film, Hong Kong supernatural picture. And that's one, I would like to cover that at some point. And then, yeah, the monolith monsters has come up on the show as well. So yeah, I have to look. I'm not as familiar with latitude zero. I need to look that one up. But generally, if Christopher Lee is in it, it's probably watchable. Hey, do you have enough laptop battery for me to do one more message here? Let's find out. Okay. This is from Lynn. Lynn says, subject line film for Weird House Cinema starring baby Hugh Grant. Lynn says, a great totally bonkers film for Weird House Cinema is layer of the white worm starring Hugh Grant before anyone knew who he was. Rob, have we not done layer of the white worm? I thought we had. We almost did it once. You picked it. And then, then, you know, for various reasons, sometimes we'll change things at the last minute. I don't remember why that was. Okay. Yeah. Anyway, Lynn says before Hugh Grant before anyone knew who he was almost called him Lou Grant. At least he probably hope so. And I wonder if he lists highly on his filmography nowadays. I'm guessing not, but he should layer of the white worm is so balls to the wall crazy it deserves to be celebrated somewhere. One viewer's warning, however, devoted Catholics might be offended at one scene involving a crucifix. No, nothing like the exorcist layer is one of my favorite films of all time. It's my dream to see it discussed on a show like yours. Keep up the great and important work you're doing. Best wishes, Lynn. Yeah, okay. Well, I've forgotten whatever happened that time. We almost did it, but I have long enjoyed this movie. My wife and I both love it. It's kind of a favorite horror movie in our house. It's very, very weird, definitely, and has a great sense of humor. Yeah. I don't, I don't, I honestly don't know how Hugh Grant views it, but, you know, he got to work with Ken Russell on it. It's a Ken Russell film. So I would hope that, you know, there's some fondness for that. And in general, yes, if you were, if you were of, if you find yourself sometimes offended by religious content in films, Ken Russell movies might not be for you. Yes. But he is indeed quite a fascinating filmmaker. I enjoyed Lynn's warning that there might be one little scene that could be offensive to Catholics. So tiny little bit of blasphemy. Yeah. No, yeah. It's, it, I think will be a highly offensive affair, but it, but I don't know. It's also very, it's got a lightheartedness to it also. It's very fun. Yeah. Yeah. I'm, I'm, we need, it would be great to figure out what Ken Russell film we should cover because there, there's a lot of, a lot of really good, weird Ken Russell movies. Totally. Okay. Does that do it for today? I think that's probably it for today, but we have so much we didn't get to, we talked more in the bag here. So we're going to, we're going to have to do another listener mail episode pretty soon, I think in a few weeks. Yeah. Just in a few weeks. So we didn't get to what you wrote us. Don't worry. We may get to it next time. But don't let that stop you from writing all new emails from sending all new pet photos, dream interpretations, thoughts about how we don't look like, how we sound and so forth. All of it's fair game. We'd love to hear from you. Just a reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, short form episodes on Wednesdays. And on Fridays, we set aside most serious concerns. So just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema. Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer, JJ Pawsway. 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 stufftoblowyourmind.com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.