Speaker 1: Monster House Presents.
Speaker 2: It's actually quite unlike anything we've ever seen before.
Speaker 1: A giant, very creature party part.
Speaker 2: In Luckness, a twenty four a mile long bottomless lake
Speaker 2: in the Highlands of Scotland.
Speaker 3: It's a creature known as the Luckness Monster.
Speaker 1: Monster Talk.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Monster Talk, the science show about monsters.
Speaker 1: I'm Blake Smith.
Speaker 2: And I'm Karen Stolsner.
Speaker 3: This week, Kieren and I are just catching up our
Speaker 3: respective lives have been super busy, and you'll hear about why.
Speaker 3: Plus we'll hint at some upcoming episode topics.
Speaker 1: We don't do this kind.
Speaker 3: Of conversational episode very often, but this was a much
Speaker 3: needed chat and we really appreciate being able to share
Speaker 3: it with you.
Speaker 1: More instrtal All right, Hey Karen, how's it going?
Speaker 2: Hey? Ups and downs? Yeah, I think the same thing
Speaker 2: for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this has been a strange year. It has been
Speaker 1: a strange year. I thought we should maybe use this episode.
Speaker 3: We've got a lot of stuff coming up, and because
Speaker 3: of some personal stuff in my life, which I'm going
Speaker 3: to hint at without giving too many details. You know,
Speaker 3: we didn't really have anything new, specifically monster related, but
Speaker 3: I thought, you know what, occasionally it's nice to just
Speaker 3: have a chat, talk about our mission, talk about what
Speaker 3: we're up to.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So yeah, twenty twenty five has been kind of rough
Speaker 3: on me, as you know, as listeners know, our friend
Speaker 3: of the show and longtime colleague and mentor, Joe Nichol
Speaker 3: passed away this year. My dog passed away this year,
Speaker 3: And sadly, it seems like my mother is going to
Speaker 3: not survive twenty twenty five. And I'm not sure when
Speaker 3: she's going to be leaving us, but it is almost
Speaker 3: certainly going to be pretty soon.
Speaker 1: And that's that's been kind of hard.
Speaker 2: And now I'm so sorry, thank you.
Speaker 3: And you know, this is not one of those you know,
Speaker 3: please send me your condulences or anything like that.
Speaker 1: This My mom is hat a full life.
Speaker 3: She's in her eighties and we have a wonderful relationship,
Speaker 3: and it's just that, you know, mortality is inevitable and
Speaker 3: she's coming to the end.
Speaker 2: So I empathize with you because my father passed in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty of the same condition.
Speaker 1: Sir. Yeah, it's a.
Speaker 2: Common disorder and prevalence is on the increase too, So yeah,
Speaker 2: it's suh yeah, uh, it's leaves you speechless.
Speaker 3: It does, and then you know, I'm sitting here thinking,
Speaker 3: oh no, my mother is going to pass away. And
Speaker 3: then I almost passed away this week. That's been exciting.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, I don't know if you want to talk
Speaker 2: about it or not.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I have I have.
Speaker 3: I have a very unusual medical condition. Is it's very
Speaker 3: you know what. Let me just let me give a
Speaker 3: side brand. I love science, and I love medicine. I
Speaker 3: love evidence based medicine, and I think maybe one of
Speaker 3: the most disappointing things as a science enthusiast is to
Speaker 3: come to the realization that as cool as science is
Speaker 3: and as cool as medicine is, it doesn't have the
Speaker 3: answers for everything. There are lots and lots and lots
Speaker 3: of conditions that there's no there's no solution for you
Speaker 3: at And one of the scariest words you can hear
Speaker 3: is idiopathic.
Speaker 2: I was thinking of that too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I have an idiopathic condition that can take me out.
Speaker 3: And I had not had any issues in a long time.
Speaker 3: Mine is an allergic situation and I used to carry
Speaker 3: an EpiPen and I didn't have my EpiPen because I
Speaker 3: haven't had a problem in many years, and then suddenly
Speaker 3: I did, and so it was really weird.
Speaker 2: You know, we had this show scheduled for today and
Speaker 2: I've got a sudden flurry of texts and have an
Speaker 2: ambulance there, and it was like, oh shit, what's happened?
Speaker 2: And I didn't know all of the details, and it
Speaker 2: was very worried about you. But I think, yeah, it's
Speaker 2: you know, we talk about alternative medicine, and I think
Speaker 2: that idiopathic conditions it's one of the reasons why alternative
Speaker 2: medicine exists because there are so many.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you want you want something to do, you want
Speaker 3: something that you can prevent or you know, to cure
Speaker 3: or to you know what. It's it's very frustrating for
Speaker 3: a person who's you know, I am a habitual problem
Speaker 3: solve right, I'm addicted to solving mysteries and.
Speaker 1: That sort of thing, and so me too. And I'm
Speaker 1: also pretty analytical most of the time.
Speaker 3: I mean, I mean, I look, I I don't want to,
Speaker 3: you know, present myself as being smarter than I am.
Speaker 3: I am no genius, but I I do tend to
Speaker 3: think about things in pretty systematic ways and try to
Speaker 3: figure out what's going on, and so you know, this is,
Speaker 3: like I said, this maybe the third time in my
Speaker 3: life I've I've been pretty sure, you know, with a
Speaker 3: lot of certitude that if things didn't turn around, I
Speaker 3: was going to die. And what's cool about it? Well,
Speaker 3: that's what I was gonna say. The cool part is
Speaker 3: it is I mean, I don't want to die. But
Speaker 3: you know a lot of people are like, well, you know, atheists,
Speaker 3: you know there's you know on the deathbed. You know
Speaker 3: you you you turn around, you you you look for God. Well,
Speaker 3: let me tell you, folks, I've faced death at least
Speaker 3: three times. And what I did was thought, does my
Speaker 3: wife have this under control? Yeah, she's got this. I'll
Speaker 3: be okay, you know, I mean, I'm going to die.
Speaker 3: What can I do? You know, I'm not afraid.
Speaker 1: I don't like pain, but I don't And this is
Speaker 1: not a brag. This is just how my brain works.
Speaker 3: I just happened to know that I don't tend to
Speaker 3: panic in these situations.
Speaker 1: I just I'm calmly counting, I'm looking at the clock.
Speaker 3: I'm thinking about here are my symptoms. I can tell
Speaker 3: I'm going into shock. I could tell how my throat's
Speaker 3: closing up, I'm like, okay, I probably have about fifteen minutes. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and then you know, and I know it was terrifying
Speaker 3: for my wife, but I was just thinking, Okay, the
Speaker 3: ambulance people there probably in the fire department, they're about
Speaker 3: five to seven minutes away. I probably have about fifteen minutes.
Speaker 3: Unless something goes horribly wrong, they're gonna get here, give
Speaker 3: me an epipinch shot, and I'm gonna be okay.
Speaker 1: Probably.
Speaker 2: Wow, there's some clarity of thought. And yeah, no near
Speaker 2: death experiences, huh. Just perspective.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just perspective.
Speaker 3: And it's like, you know, when I recovered and it
Speaker 3: takes a while to recover from both the epipinch shot
Speaker 3: and you know all the Bina droll I took, it
Speaker 3: was like, yeah, I need to I mean, there's some
Speaker 3: things I need to get in better order. But yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean I'm pretty happy with my situation mentally, Like
Speaker 3: I I'm not afraid of death, which is sad because
Speaker 3: many people I know who tell me I need to
Speaker 3: be worried about what comes next, are far more afraid
Speaker 3: of death.
Speaker 1: Than I am.
Speaker 3: And that but and again this is not me bragging.
Speaker 3: This is just it's like, I'm very optimistic. I don't
Speaker 3: tell people here's how you can think like me, because
Speaker 3: I don't think.
Speaker 1: That's why I think this way. I think it's just
Speaker 1: my nature.
Speaker 2: You know, everything's going to handle these situations differently.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so yeah, and I you know, maybe I
Speaker 3: should be afraid. I don't know, you know, I mean,
Speaker 3: I we'll all find out one day.
Speaker 2: Right, So it's probably healthy to have the attitude that
Speaker 2: you have. And I've had my health conditions too. I
Speaker 2: have a number of autoimmune conditions, and yeah, I don't
Speaker 2: know how much we want to delve into just how
Speaker 2: old we're becoming. People say that when you develop one
Speaker 2: autoimmune condition, you start collecting them, and that's the case
Speaker 2: for me. And so nothing that's very serious. I had
Speaker 2: fears of multiple sclerosis at one point, so nothing quite
Speaker 2: as severe as that. But certainly a number of very
Speaker 2: uncomfortable conditions that I've dealt with, and I have a
Speaker 2: number of them in check. But the latest one to
Speaker 2: happen to me is pretty monstrous. So the show's about monsters, right,
Speaker 2: but a lot of conditions it is certainly monstrous. So
Speaker 2: I've had a real ordeal since last year and I've
Speaker 2: kind of told you bits and pieces of this, But
Speaker 2: I had a little fall last year and it was
Speaker 2: nothing serious. I was just going for a walk with
Speaker 2: my son and it was twilight, so it was getting
Speaker 2: dark and I just tripped. So I lost my footing
Speaker 2: and fell and my shoulder took the branch of the fall.
Speaker 2: But when you fall, you tend to go into a
Speaker 2: little bit of shock, so I didn't really know exactly
Speaker 2: where I hit myself and what was happening and anyway,
Speaker 2: so I developed some pain and it was difficult to
Speaker 2: sleep on that side, and I thought I'd better go
Speaker 2: and get an X ray. So I went and saw.
Speaker 2: I went to a clinic and saw a nurse, had
Speaker 2: some X rays. Everything was fine. It started to abate
Speaker 2: and I thought, okay, all's good. And then maybe a
Speaker 2: couple of weeks later, I started the pain came back again.
Speaker 2: And then I started developing this kind of stiffness and
Speaker 2: a lot of pain trying to sleep on that side
Speaker 2: at night, and I thought, look, I better pursue this further.
Speaker 2: I went back to the nurse that I saw, and
Speaker 2: she referred me to an orthopedic clinic, and they were concerned. Initially,
Speaker 2: that it was a rotator cuff tear and because of
Speaker 2: the amount of pain that I was in and my
Speaker 2: range of motion was very limited and just a lot
Speaker 2: of stiffness. And so anyway, I had to have an
Speaker 2: MRI because the X rays didn't tell us enough and
Speaker 2: they discovered that I have what is called the frozen shoulder.
Speaker 2: I heard of that, so the technical name is adhesive capsulitis.
Speaker 2: And oh my god, it is so painful and it's
Speaker 2: another one of those idiopathic kind of mysterious conditions. It's
Speaker 2: often linked to diabetes and thiery disorders, which is something
Speaker 2: that I have. I'm in the age group, I'm in
Speaker 2: the gender that tends to suffer from this as well.
Speaker 2: But I wanted to mention this because I wanted to
Speaker 2: raise a bit of awareness about this condition, because to
Speaker 2: maximize recovery, you need to get this diagnosed early, and
Speaker 2: I have. I've had a cortisone shot just a couple
Speaker 2: of days ago, and I'm having to use cold packs
Speaker 2: and take iberprofen. But I want to urge anyone out
Speaker 2: there because I've talked to so many people about this
Speaker 2: already and they've said, you know, I'm getting similar pain
Speaker 2: and I want people who are feeling any kind of
Speaker 2: stiffness or soreness that is chronic to get it looked at,
Speaker 2: because this is a surprisingly common disorder and it's really debilitating.
Speaker 2: So I'm just hoping that anyone who's out there and
Speaker 2: experiencing something similar do something about it, because as soon
Speaker 2: as you get it addressed, the better. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I just I'm you know, our mission here is to
Speaker 3: prote critical thinking and scientific thinking, and we use monsters
Speaker 3: as a framework for that. And it's like, right now,
Speaker 3: it feels to me, you know, like the academic world
Speaker 3: is under attack here in America and the science based
Speaker 3: medicine is under attack, and it's like it's really frustrating,
Speaker 3: and you know, I think the work we do here
Speaker 3: is very important, you know, raising awareness and trying to
Speaker 3: keep that and you know, in our own lives, you know,
Speaker 3: I can certainly feel the temptation when you want there
Speaker 3: to be an instant fix or reliable fix and there's nothing.
Speaker 3: It's so disappointing, and it's like, you know, it's it's
Speaker 3: just a struggle. But maybe you know, some things don't
Speaker 3: have an answer. But you're right, every every every modality
Speaker 3: that we try to.
Speaker 1: Use to mitigate these things.
Speaker 3: You know, we're trusting that the system itself is based
Speaker 3: on hardway evidence, and sometimes it isn't.
Speaker 1: That's that's very disappointing too. It's weird.
Speaker 2: Oh and to go back to alternative medicine and alternative therapies.
Speaker 2: I've just had a number of people recommend chiropractice and
Speaker 2: going to local health food stores or supermarkets and just
Speaker 2: asking what do you have in the way of topical
Speaker 2: pain relief, and they direct me to homeopathic medicine in
Speaker 2: quoty fingers and ah, you know, all kinds of arnica
Speaker 2: stuff like that. That is it seems to work for
Speaker 2: some people, but I think that's really a placebo effect.
Speaker 3: Well exactly, and that gets so complicated, you know. So
Speaker 3: for the entire time we've done this show, that there's
Speaker 3: you know, we're we kind of emerged out of that
Speaker 3: sort of mid two thousands, you know, online skeptical world.
Speaker 2: Oh the heyday salad days.
Speaker 3: There was so much optimism then, but so many of
Speaker 3: the shows and blogs and all the sort of content
Speaker 3: that was coming out was focused on medicine because there's
Speaker 3: so much harm and alternative medicine and I sometimes I
Speaker 3: felt a little guilty, you know that, like, well, there's
Speaker 3: so much real harm and Bigfoot hardly hurts anybody.
Speaker 2: That's not true if you read the novels.
Speaker 1: Well, that's true too.
Speaker 3: Everything everything we face, you know, we have to we
Speaker 3: have to approach it with some framework of you know,
Speaker 3: and we don't always have the cognitive time or energy
Speaker 3: to evaluate stuff, and so we look to experts, and
Speaker 3: we look to trusted sources. And that's that's a really
Speaker 3: it's a really normal heuristic.
Speaker 2: Which is difficult right now, right now, if.
Speaker 3: You can't trust those sources, having good critical thinking skills
Speaker 3: gives you a pathway to at least figure out if
Speaker 3: you can't do the research yourself scientifically, you can at
Speaker 3: least figure out which sources might be trustworthy, what experts.
Speaker 1: Can you trust?
Speaker 2: Way to look for exactly.
Speaker 1: You know, and it a YouTube and Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 3: That's not where you find good information, is not, So
Speaker 3: you have to try a little harder, dig a little.
Speaker 2: Further, fortunately and unfortunately.
Speaker 3: But I'll tell you one thing, if you know, facing mortality,
Speaker 3: facing all these things, one thing that keeps me optimistic
Speaker 3: is looking forward.
Speaker 1: Working on projects.
Speaker 3: You know that I think are going to make, you know,
Speaker 3: leave a mark, hopefully leave something out there for people
Speaker 3: to to listen to, to help guide them, you know,
Speaker 3: in some way. And so you know, this show is
Speaker 3: it is, and it keeps me happy. It keeps me
Speaker 3: optimistic about the future. We we can't from just this
Speaker 3: show fix the world, but individuals, maybe we'll learn something
Speaker 3: here about one or two things and it will help
Speaker 3: them along the way, and it maybe entertained.
Speaker 1: And sometimes people just feel better for having listened to us.
Speaker 3: They've some people like our ps my pints, I should
Speaker 3: be let me me make your puns.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, and I think I think we try to
Speaker 2: make a difference. And certainly our listeners do reach out
Speaker 2: to us on occasion and say that we helped them
Speaker 2: to get through a dark time, or to get through
Speaker 2: the pandemic, or I mean they're equally helping us to
Speaker 2: get through our own.
Speaker 3: Yeah, to twist a phrase, you know, think global but
Speaker 3: act vocal.
Speaker 1: That's a podcasting.
Speaker 2: Tricky for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, we do have lots of things going on, I
Speaker 2: guess work wise and Bobby wise as well. True enough,
Speaker 2: tell me a little bit about what you've been working on.
Speaker 3: Well, sure, Well, first of all, I've been working on
Speaker 3: my computer situation, and I don't want to go into
Speaker 3: a great, big technical thing, but basically, the audio software
Speaker 3: that I use is Audacity, and it's free and open source,
Speaker 3: which I really like. But recent up dates have made
Speaker 3: it so that the file sizes get really enormous.
Speaker 1: And even on my Mac it was.
Speaker 3: Which was super fast when I first got it, Uh,
Speaker 3: it just became untenable.
Speaker 1: I couldn't.
Speaker 3: It would sometimes take five or six minutes to save
Speaker 3: a file. I tried lots of things to fix that,
Speaker 3: but that's too slow when you're trying to edit.
Speaker 1: And every time I make a change, yeah, yeah, well.
Speaker 3: I'd make an edit and it might take me two
Speaker 3: or three minutes before the edit would show up on screen.
Speaker 3: So you know, and Windows that already given me so
Speaker 3: much trouble. So I rolled over to make my one
Speaker 3: of my boxes into a LINEX workstation and I've been
Speaker 3: using that. The only problem is I'm trying to use
Speaker 3: vintage hardware and it's it's a little bit underwhelming in
Speaker 3: the memory department. But I bought some new memory chips
Speaker 3: and it turns out they have to be the same
Speaker 3: speed as the one that's throwing on the board, and
Speaker 3: so anyway this week I will find out if that's
Speaker 3: going to work. If it doesn't, I'm going to probably
Speaker 3: have to drive five or six drop five or six
Speaker 3: hundred bucks on a new system board. But I'm trying
Speaker 3: to get by with what I got, so unfortunately it is,
Speaker 3: but I'm loving honestly, I've been using I am a
Speaker 3: i don't know what you call it, a generalist. I
Speaker 3: know how to use several operating systems, Unix based opportunity.
Speaker 3: So I just like technology, and so I'm really enjoying
Speaker 3: getting back into Linux more hardcore.
Speaker 1: It's so much fun.
Speaker 3: I really hate the way the world's switching to subscription
Speaker 3: based software for everything, so using free and open source
Speaker 3: is so much better.
Speaker 1: It's great.
Speaker 3: You know, I just need to get a box that
Speaker 3: is all right. I need to get this box up to.
Speaker 1: Speed with the memory, or.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna have to buy a new system board. I'm
Speaker 3: not too happy about that, but it's okay. We're doing
Speaker 3: okay this year. This year, things seem to be headed
Speaker 3: in the right direction in some way, so I'm happy about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's something.
Speaker 3: So a lot of I lost a lot of time
Speaker 3: with heart computer issues. But but so that's that's been challenging.
Speaker 3: But other than that, you know, I had big plans.
Speaker 3: I was going to really try to get my first
Speaker 3: draft of my my technology book out in April, and
Speaker 3: thenmultiple deaths and medical issues made that laughably impossible.
Speaker 2: It is, It is difficult.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but we've got good stuff coming up for this show,
Speaker 3: which I'm very excited about.
Speaker 1: We're gonna first of all, I read a book called High.
Speaker 3: Weirdness by Eric Davis, and it's about the nineteen seventies
Speaker 3: Terence mckinna and Robert Anton Wilson and Philip K. Dick
Speaker 3: and the way there's sort of lives and creativity overlapped
Speaker 3: and impacted the way the whole world thinks about hallucina,
Speaker 3: gens and oh interesting alternate AI and all kinds of things.
Speaker 1: It's really fascinating.
Speaker 3: I really I think that'd be a great interview.
Speaker 1: It's a really terrific book.
Speaker 2: Yeah, looking forward to that, hoping I can fit it
Speaker 2: in before we chat with him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is a fantastic reed. But if you can't,
Speaker 3: I'll get you up to speed. But we also have
Speaker 3: a friend of the show, Jerry Drakes, to be coming back.
Speaker 3: He's been working on a book for a while now,
Speaker 3: you got to talk about that.
Speaker 2: He has. So, Hazel was a good girl. So this
Speaker 2: is the story that inspired the Twin Peaks series, a
Speaker 2: tale of a true crime, So the murder of a
Speaker 2: young lady by the name of Hazel Drew. And So
Speaker 2: I have not finished the book yet, but it is riveting.
Speaker 2: I've really been enjoying it. And so he has a
Speaker 2: new theory about who done it, and surprisingly he has
Speaker 2: a ghost story to tell that's part of his research,
Speaker 2: part of his investigation. So I really found that very surprising.
Speaker 2: I saw him or one of his friends hint at
Speaker 2: that on Facebook and I found it very astonishing. So
Speaker 2: I'm looking forward to bringing him on the show and
Speaker 2: hearing more about this strange, paranormal like experience that he
Speaker 2: had that led to him to write this book.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Jerry's a really fascinating guy.
Speaker 1: I've always enjoyed talking with him.
Speaker 3: And he's one of the people we've met through the
Speaker 3: show that I've actually had the chance to meet in
Speaker 3: real life.
Speaker 1: And he was a delight.
Speaker 2: Oh I haven't yet, I had so.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I really hope to get that red before
Speaker 3: we talk to him as well. I know he's been
Speaker 3: working a long time so and he's been with you know,
Speaker 3: our magic series too.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. He gets a hyper focus on something and
Speaker 2: works on it and comes up with answers. So I
Speaker 2: really can't wait to see what his conclusions are.
Speaker 3: I won't say anything about his day job, but he's
Speaker 3: he's in an interesting place.
Speaker 1: It's really cool.
Speaker 3: Off the record, he works for the government, so we
Speaker 3: can't say any.
Speaker 1: More than that.
Speaker 3: But anyway, speaking of magic, so this is a little sad.
Speaker 3: So I got contacted out of the blue by one
Speaker 3: of Joe nichols friends and colleagues. And you know, Joe
Speaker 3: passed away and a professor, doctor Phil Stevens, who knew
Speaker 3: Joe and worked up in Buffalo, contacted me and said
Speaker 3: that he was working on a New York Times obituary
Speaker 3: for Joe. So I was delighted. It was so kind.
Speaker 3: I was so glad that that happened. He did, and
Speaker 3: it was really really heartwarming. I'll put a link to
Speaker 3: that in the show notes. But but Phil himself is
Speaker 3: an emeritus professor of anthropology and has written a book
Speaker 3: about magic and witchcraft. And I was like, wow, I mean,
Speaker 3: I didn't want We were talking about this very sensitive topic.
Speaker 3: But at the same time, when I looked at his credentials,
Speaker 3: I was like, Oh, I really want to talk to
Speaker 3: him on the show, you know. So he's kindly agreed
Speaker 3: to come on. Yeah, so I'm excited about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, me too. And speaking of Phil's, we spoke with
Speaker 2: Philip Center recently and we did that two parts yes episode,
Speaker 2: the two episodes on Dino's.
Speaker 1: And Yeah, he was getting some great feedback on that too.
Speaker 3: By the way, I really appreciate that from the listeners
Speaker 3: wh've reached out.
Speaker 2: That is really good to hear. And so we were
Speaker 2: going back and forth with his editor, Christina Ward, and
Speaker 2: she's a publisher with fare House.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they have an interesting catalog, I'll tell you you know.
Speaker 3: I was delighted to hear that they had some content
Speaker 3: that was actually aligned with how our show goes. But yeah,
Speaker 3: they a lot of their stuff would be Look, they're edgy,
Speaker 3: They're just they're kind of punk.
Speaker 1: Honestly, I was.
Speaker 2: Totally going to say they're the punk music of the
Speaker 2: publishing world, and I will She mentioned something about food
Speaker 2: publishing and I'm interested in that, and so I went
Speaker 2: and checked out some of her books, and she very
Speaker 2: kindly sent us some copies. And I'm very excited about
Speaker 2: this because I've been looking for someone to talk to
Speaker 2: about monstrous food, and so she said us a copy
Speaker 2: of Holy Food, which is how cults, immunes, and religious
Speaker 2: movements influenced what we eat at American History. So it's
Speaker 2: a really thick book and weighty with knowledge. I'm really
Speaker 2: looking forward to that. In the other books, Yesterday and
Speaker 2: Your Wife, She's stolen there.
Speaker 1: She's such a foodie.
Speaker 3: In one of the books is I know there was
Speaker 3: oh my gosh, speaking of people who past.
Speaker 2: Was the other one, so American Advertising Cookbooks.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: One of my friends was in the skeptical movement, was
Speaker 3: Leo Lincourt, and I loved him to death and we
Speaker 3: never met, but he was he loved a few things.
Speaker 3: He loved skepticism, and he loved kerbal Space program, and
Speaker 3: he'd loved to post nineteen seventy's gelatinous recipes.
Speaker 2: And there is one that I'm looking at now on
Speaker 2: the cover of this book, American Advertising Cookbooks, How corporations
Speaker 2: taught us to love spam of this trademark bananas and
Speaker 2: Jello trademark, And yes, one of those horrifying concoctions. It
Speaker 2: looks to me like it is with maybe lettuce and olives.
Speaker 1: This is going to be so much fun.
Speaker 3: I grew up in that world and my great aunt
Speaker 3: used to always make this hideous looking green yellow concoction
Speaker 3: with milk and be kind.
Speaker 2: That was the Yeah, we didn't have too much of
Speaker 2: that sort of stuff growing up in Australia, but certainly
Speaker 2: my mother had some older cookbooks and Joy of Cooking
Speaker 2: style thing and to Scotch eggs and lots of things
Speaker 2: that looked a bit nasty to make toast. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: not a veggie might fan. I think we've discussed that before.
Speaker 2: So talking about monstrous food another reason I was exiled here.
Speaker 2: But that is going to be a really fun interview.
Speaker 2: And another one that I want Shah to tackle too
Speaker 2: is to bring Matt back on again and to talk
Speaker 2: about haunted chichen Itza. We made a very short true
Speaker 2: to Cancun a couple of weeks ago. It was just
Speaker 2: a very last minute thing, and you were very wrapped
Speaker 2: up in things and we were We didn't talk for
Speaker 2: a little bit there, and so we did this quick
Speaker 2: getaway and visited Chitchinitze, which was just a marvelous experience.
Speaker 2: I was so excited to visit there, and we were
Speaker 2: collecting lots of ghost stories about the place, and there's
Speaker 2: just a lot of folklore that's very interesting, and just
Speaker 2: going to Mexico and the exposure to all of the
Speaker 2: scams and interesting cultural things that took place there. So
Speaker 2: we thought we could talk about those for an upcoming episode.
Speaker 1: That sounds cool, you remind me.
Speaker 3: I had been working on an article for the UK
Speaker 3: Skeptic magazine about the It's going to be a chapter
Speaker 3: in my book, but it's about this moment in time
Speaker 3: when sort of technology and magic and other things came
Speaker 3: to get but I couldn't shrink it down into a
Speaker 3: suitably small format, so I've decided to not do that,
Speaker 3: but it will be in my book, but.
Speaker 2: You can use the research well exactly.
Speaker 3: No, it's perfect for my book. It's just it fits
Speaker 3: better in the whole context. So if you're reading it
Speaker 3: in the context of the history of the personal computer,
Speaker 3: which is kind of a focus of the book, because
Speaker 3: you kind of see in that one field how innovation
Speaker 3: can play out in a whole bunch of different ways.
Speaker 3: But all the background information that I was trying to
Speaker 3: cram into this one chapter will be spread out through
Speaker 3: the whole book, so it's much easier to kind of
Speaker 3: focus on that one scene anyway, so that's not lost
Speaker 3: or wasted. But I wanted to give them an article,
Speaker 3: and so I've decided to finally write up my thoughts
Speaker 3: on this whole idea of scripted So I'm going to
Speaker 3: do that's actually finally going to be in print hopefully. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so pretty soon, probably in the next.
Speaker 1: Three or four weeks. That should be finalized. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: that whole idea, we talk about it all the time.
Speaker 3: This interplay between how you know, imagery and film and
Speaker 3: pop culture influences the things people really report, and the
Speaker 3: things people really report ends up influencing film and media.
Speaker 1: So it is this feedback.
Speaker 2: Loop and exactly, yeah, you know.
Speaker 3: And I guess I'm going to use Bigfoot as the
Speaker 3: primary case, even though it's not the first, and then
Speaker 3: talk about that, you know, because the Patterson Gimlan film,
Speaker 3: you know, before the PGF, I think there was a
Speaker 3: lot of variation in how people reported Bigfoot.
Speaker 1: I mean, there were lots of stories of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sometimes he's like fifteen feet tall in those early reports,
Speaker 3: it's crazy, and then suddenly we see the movie and
Speaker 3: then that locks in.
Speaker 1: What Bigfoot is.
Speaker 3: But it's even funnier than that because he himself, Patterson
Speaker 3: was copying a story that he had read from Canada,
Speaker 3: so you know, there's all this feedback and it's just
Speaker 3: it's really worth writing that up, I think, and so
Speaker 3: I'm looking forward to that. And plus it'll put scripted
Speaker 3: in print and not just here in the podcast.
Speaker 1: So that'll be nice.
Speaker 2: I'm just going to say, yeah, you definitely want to
Speaker 2: do that before someone else does.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if Joe was still alive, he'd be nagging me
Speaker 3: to get it done because he was always saying, if
Speaker 3: it's not print, it didn't happen, I will take over.
Speaker 2: I will nag you more.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. That's what I need.
Speaker 3: It's like somebody told me the other day or I
Speaker 3: was talking about my optimism. I describe myself as pathologically optimistic,
Speaker 3: and it was my sister. She was laughing about it,
Speaker 3: and I said, well, you know, the good thing is
Speaker 3: I've got Kathleen here to keep me grounded. In fact,
Speaker 3: sometimes she keeps me so grounded i'm subterranean.
Speaker 2: She does a very good job she does, she does.
Speaker 1: I'm very lucky.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I'm just thinking about other news too. This
Speaker 2: week I will be giving a talk. It's going to
Speaker 2: be virtual to the gender Balanced It work at Cambridge
Speaker 2: University Press, so I'm really excited about that. They read
Speaker 2: my book Bitch, the Journey of a Word, and one of.
Speaker 1: The things I was going to ask you, how's that bitch?
Speaker 2: Do it? It's do it, okay, just between you and
Speaker 2: me and the listeners. I just found out that the
Speaker 2: Cambridge University Press nominated me for a Pulitzer Prize and
Speaker 2: they announced the results this week. I don't know how
Speaker 2: any of this works. I think they have thousands of
Speaker 2: nominations every year, but that would be that would be
Speaker 2: incredibly cool if I had even a look in at that.
Speaker 2: So it's an honor to be nominated, is an absolute.
Speaker 3: Honored to be nominated. Nothing I've ever done is been
Speaker 3: nominated for anything but that.
Speaker 2: Well, I just didn't think it would be up there. Ali,
Speaker 2: But I'm looking at some of the previous winners categories
Speaker 2: like plays and musicals and things like that, that seems
Speaker 2: like they are becoming a bit more progressive and edgy,
Speaker 2: So you never know.
Speaker 3: They don't have a pun category though, do they they
Speaker 3: need one?
Speaker 1: They do, they desperately do, clearly.
Speaker 2: Going back to the talks, so I'm going to be
Speaker 2: talking about sexus language in the workplace. And I just
Speaker 2: finished up a research project at a university too, and
Speaker 2: I've just become a visiting scholar at the University of
Speaker 2: Colorado Boulder to congratulations, thank you. So it's it's unpaid,
Speaker 2: it is just an affiliation. But I'm going to be
Speaker 2: using that to work on a number of other book
Speaker 2: proposals and book projects. And I've got another book which
Speaker 2: is going to be coming out. I'm not sure if
Speaker 2: it will be this year or next year, but it's
Speaker 2: beyond words. It's about psycho linguistics, which is how we
Speaker 2: learn language and how we use it, how we lose
Speaker 2: language with various conditions like Alzheimer's and dementia and a phasia.
Speaker 2: So that's really interesting stuff. I've found that medical parts
Speaker 2: to be so fascinating. That's the kind of stuff I
Speaker 2: love researching. And that's out to clearance review now. So
Speaker 2: the peer review process at Cambridge University Press is that
Speaker 2: they had I had oh maybe about six peer reviewers
Speaker 2: and then I write the book and now it's out
Speaker 2: for clearance too, so they certainly do their intelligence when
Speaker 2: it comes to sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you know, again that's one of those things
Speaker 3: where we're talking about sort of your epistemology, what do
Speaker 3: you trust what do you not trust for knowledge? You
Speaker 3: know that whole peer review it's not flawless, but you know,
Speaker 3: it is really important to get that process done and
Speaker 3: vent these ideas against experts within the field. That's really
Speaker 3: really critical for a you know, a trustworthy product, right
Speaker 3: it is.
Speaker 2: And one of the first books that was written about
Speaker 2: this topic goes back to the nineteen seventies and there's
Speaker 2: a well the first book because it's a combination of
Speaker 2: psychology and linguistics, and so one of the first people
Speaker 2: to write it it was Gene Atchison, and she said
Speaker 2: that I had a lot of feedback and a lot
Speaker 2: of opinions about how I should have amended this book,
Speaker 2: and but I should have added or excluded, and I
Speaker 2: didn't listen to them. Perhaps it would have been a
Speaker 2: better book had I done so, but I didn't. And
Speaker 2: I think that this something like this, sometimes you need
Speaker 2: to take the bull by the horns and really do
Speaker 2: your own thing and go Maverick, and so that's what
Speaker 2: this book is really about. There are a lot of
Speaker 2: books on this topic, Chomsky, Hinker, and my book is
Speaker 2: a different take. Again. Yeah, I was.
Speaker 3: Chomsky's as I don't want to kill him by calling
Speaker 3: his name, but he's somehow still alive.
Speaker 1: There was like a death rumor about.
Speaker 2: Him, is yes, Yeah, I think every so often there's
Speaker 2: news that he's passed. And it's so funny.
Speaker 3: Because he seems to have like two identities, like there's
Speaker 3: Chompsky the linguists, and there's Champsky the political figure, you know,
Speaker 3: and a lot of people like hate him for his politics,
Speaker 3: you know, and don't want to recognize the other side.
Speaker 2: So yeah, his work was absolutely groundbreaking in linguistics, but
Speaker 2: people don't go to hear him talk about universal grammar,
Speaker 2: right is that why.
Speaker 1: Names?
Speaker 3: And that's you know, his name was always tied in
Speaker 3: with that work.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's interesting stuff.
Speaker 3: And obviously I knew nothing about linguistics compared to anyone
Speaker 3: who's even halfway first.
Speaker 2: You know, I think you'd be very interested in this
Speaker 2: book because I do talk about things like animal systems
Speaker 2: of communication and attempts to try to get animals to talk.
Speaker 2: So I'm also talking about different protagonists in the development
Speaker 2: of psycholinguistics. So there are just so many different fields
Speaker 2: that are connected to this kind of growing and burgeoning field.
Speaker 2: And so these are people who historically wouldn't have described
Speaker 2: themselves as psycholinguists, but to the extent that their work
Speaker 2: informed accounts of the relationship between the brain and language,
Speaker 2: they're no less a part of the history of the field.
Speaker 2: So I wanted to just mention an Austrian inventor from
Speaker 2: the eighteenth century. His name was Wolfgang von Kempelin, So
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if you're familiar with him at all.
Speaker 1: Well, I am, weirdly because.
Speaker 3: One of his inventions is the mechanical turk or the
Speaker 3: chess turk, and that's really important in.
Speaker 1: My research.
Speaker 3: For technology, because it's not that he made an invent
Speaker 3: that turns out to be a huge hoax on the
Speaker 3: chess tirk side.
Speaker 1: It was actually a man in the machine. I'll put
Speaker 1: a link in that the show.
Speaker 3: Notes it inspired the whole idea of a mechanical chess device,
Speaker 3: which led directly into some of the early work in
Speaker 3: artificial intelligence.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I didn't know about that, but I knew
Speaker 2: about his best known invention, the chess turk. So that
Speaker 2: was an apparatus that played chess with an opponent, and
Speaker 2: it had it was go and look it up, listeners,
Speaker 2: because it's just a funny, funny device, and it has
Speaker 2: a kind of turban wearing mannequin that's treaked in robes
Speaker 2: and it's attached.
Speaker 1: To it Zoltan from Big.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, absolutely, it's attached to this kind of box
Speaker 2: like cabinet. So, as you said, it was a hoax.
Speaker 2: So there was a hidden human chess master who was
Speaker 2: manipulating a series of levers, but nobody was able to
Speaker 2: expose it at the time, so you know, no one
Speaker 2: could get in there and take a look at it.
Speaker 2: But a lot of people fell for the ruse. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: and the turk was it checkmated both Napoleon and Benjamin Franklin,
Speaker 2: which I thought was fascinating. So another device that Pempland
Speaker 2: created was something called the speaking machine. So this was
Speaker 2: probably devised to simulate the speech of the chess player.
Speaker 2: So but it did really it became a pioneer, or
Speaker 2: he became a pioneer in the field of speech synthesis technology.
Speaker 2: So he devised this machine and it was really designed
Speaker 2: to mimic human space each so it makes it a
Speaker 2: full runner of modern speech programs like Siri. And what
Speaker 2: it was created for was to mimic the vocal tract.
Speaker 2: So it used bellows to stimulate lungs that were forcing
Speaker 2: air through a kind of read that was acting as
Speaker 2: the glottis, and then that vibrated like a voice box
Speaker 2: to produce speech sounds through a kind of mouth or chamber.
Speaker 2: And it's a really interesting device. You can go and
Speaker 2: take a look at it online and it played like
Speaker 2: a musical instrument and it's really creepy to listen to
Speaker 2: examples of it. People have replicated it, and it has
Speaker 2: this kind of childlike voice and it would say things
Speaker 2: like mama and Papa. And it was also created to
Speaker 2: add some phrases too, and it really creepy stuff like
Speaker 2: you are my friend, I love you with all my
Speaker 2: heart and come with me to Paris.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, I'll have to see if I can find
Speaker 1: a recording and drop in you. That is amazing. I
Speaker 1: never heard about it.
Speaker 2: This device is a replica Von Campbell in speaking machine.
Speaker 3: This is a real invention. But he's so famous for
Speaker 3: the hoax of the mechanical turk.
Speaker 1: That is just neat.
Speaker 3: I love how this topic overlaps skepticism, your interest in
Speaker 3: linguistics and my interest in innovation and artificial intelligence, and
Speaker 3: that's that that is really cool.
Speaker 2: It really doesn't. He wrote a book too, so it
Speaker 2: was in German, but it was essentially Mechanism of Human
Speaker 2: Speech and Language, and so this examined the origin of
Speaker 2: human speech, sounds, and the organs involved. So, you know,
Speaker 2: he was kind of a huckster, but he was a genius.
Speaker 1: That's really neat. When is your book coming out or
Speaker 1: when do you think it'll be out.
Speaker 2: It's currently undergoing a clearance review and then I have
Speaker 2: to go through the process of proofing and editing and
Speaker 2: all of that. Okaycha indexing, So I think it could
Speaker 2: potentially come out later this year or as late as
Speaker 2: early next year. Yeah, but he was the first person
Speaker 2: to create a machine that's basically the foundation for all
Speaker 2: of the devices that we have today. That it's the
Speaker 2: comic speech.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, and there's again, speaking of skepticism, there's
Speaker 3: so much well I'm just gonna say bullshit. There's so
Speaker 3: much bullshit in the technology world. So I mean, it's
Speaker 3: amazing things happen, and then they get over hyped, and
Speaker 3: then things that are not real get made that are
Speaker 3: pretending to be real.
Speaker 1: So like like.
Speaker 3: Elon Musk's Tesla robots, you know, they've had multiple events
Speaker 3: where first they had a guy in a suit pretending
Speaker 3: to be a robot and they're claiming, you know, trying
Speaker 3: to get investors saying they're making a robots. They have
Speaker 3: a guy in a suit, and then they have an
Speaker 3: event where they have robots, but they're actually being remote controlled.
Speaker 3: So the robots are talking to people and making drinks,
Speaker 3: but it's being done remotely.
Speaker 1: There's companies that are doing.
Speaker 3: You know, automated drivers, but then humans drop in and
Speaker 3: take over, so it's really remote control driving. And it's
Speaker 3: like you just have to be so skeptical and you know,
Speaker 3: and I don't mean that like dismissive. I mean you
Speaker 3: have to just like you have to be able to
Speaker 3: look under the hood or seek out people who know
Speaker 3: how to look under the hood and see whether this
Speaker 3: stuff is really.
Speaker 1: Happening or whether it's just hype and bs. And it's
Speaker 1: sad that the changes.
Speaker 3: Well don't you think it's sad that We live in
Speaker 3: a world where you can't call bullshit because people say
Speaker 3: you don't say that word. But yet we get harmed
Speaker 3: because of literal It's just bullshit.
Speaker 1: What's not literalists, But let's work on a farm.
Speaker 3: You're probably not literally being harmed by bullshit.
Speaker 2: But there's that too. Yeah, but yeah, So I'm juggling
Speaker 2: a lot now and quickly you are too. But a
Speaker 2: lot's happening and lots of things worth living for.
Speaker 3: Yes, And I keep again, whether it's pathological or not,
Speaker 3: my optimism is high.
Speaker 1: I didn't.
Speaker 3: I was feeling really down for a few months, and
Speaker 3: something happened in about three four weeks ago. Something just
Speaker 3: clicked and I felt like I was back in my
Speaker 3: twenties mentally, Like suddenly my optimism returned. I'm thinking, and
Speaker 3: clearly I'm getting a lot of stuff done on projects,
Speaker 3: like I'm just having this moment of clarity.
Speaker 1: No, no, it seems to be.
Speaker 3: It does not seem to be medicinal, and nothing's changed
Speaker 3: my medication or whatever, but I just my brain just
Speaker 3: seems to be fired up. Like I think it's like
Speaker 3: some depression cleared, you know, anxiety to cleared. I don't know,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm back, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, and I know.
Speaker 3: It's like I've tried to arm myself because I know
Speaker 3: bad things are coming. I've got you know, my loved
Speaker 3: ones are getting old. They are going to die on me,
Speaker 3: and there's nothing I can do to stop that. But
Speaker 3: I am savoring every moment I can get with them.
Speaker 2: That is a great attitude, and I think it's all
Speaker 2: about resilience.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really is.
Speaker 3: So I love my family, I love my friends, and
Speaker 3: I love that we have listeners who are so supportive.
Speaker 2: So I love all listeners.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you so much.
Speaker 3: Thanks for giving us an episode where we're just catching
Speaker 3: up because I mean, you know, a.
Speaker 2: Little bit with all the things that we've been doing.
Speaker 3: So yeah, that's true. This is actually literally this is real.
Speaker 3: This is me and Karen catching up.
Speaker 2: On for sure. This is very unscripted key stuff here.
Speaker 3: Anyway, We got interviews coming up and new stuff coming out,
Speaker 3: So stay tuned, and thank you for listening and supporting
Speaker 3: our show.
Speaker 2: We really appreciate we do. We certainly do.
Speaker 3: Monster You've been listening to Monster Talk, the science show
Speaker 3: about monsters. I'm Blake Smith and I'm Karen Stolsner. You
Speaker 3: were just listening to me and Karen catching up on
Speaker 3: our lives and what's coming up from Monster Talk.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening along.
Speaker 3: As a reminder, you can always email me at Blake
Speaker 3: at monster talk dot org or Karen at Karen at
Speaker 3: monster talk dot org. We don't always have time to reply,
Speaker 3: but we always appreciate your feedback. Hey, if you want
Speaker 3: to support this show, If you like this show, it
Speaker 3: really doesn't cost you anything to just tell a friend.
Speaker 3: That's all we need you to do. If you can
Speaker 3: support us on Patreon, that's great. If you want to
Speaker 3: give us review on iTunes, that certainly helps.
Speaker 1: But you know, just telling a friend it means a lot.
Speaker 3: Monster Talk theme music is by Pete Stealing Monkeys. If
Speaker 3: my philosophy was a bumper Sticker would probably say, I
Speaker 3: don't believe in much, but I believe in you.
Speaker 1: This has been a Monster House presentation