Wonderful! - Wonderful! 349: Guaranteed Spheres

Episode Date: November 6, 2024

Rachel's favorite state of consciousness! Griffin's favorite mouth instrument! Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoya First Nations Development Institute: https://www.firstnations.org/

["The Wicked Man's Theme Song"] Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. Hello, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is wonderful. It's a podcast show where we talk about things we like that's good that we are into. Oh, looks like someone's got a little special accessory

that they're working with. The hot fall item. Is it the sticker? Yeah, I almost didn't wanna bring it up because you know this episode comes out after- Oh yeah. Election day. Jesus Christ. I don't love thinking about time.

Uh-huh, period. Period, extending beyond, I don't like the idea that we're making something and then people are listening to it and they might know what's up. We used to publish or we used to record and then publish this episode like right on top of when it would come out.

Which is probably for the best that we're not doing that. Because no matter which way this cookie crumbles, we're gonna be all tied up in knots. I know, I was tempted to talk about something, you know, voting related. And then I realized realized not relevant. People immediately stop thinking about voting once they've voted.

Friends, it's Friday, November the first as we're recording this. So if the way we're speaking is maybe not exactly at the right vibe level for where we're at, understand it's four days before, five days before when you're maybe hearing this. If you're like a diehard, like day one listener, which most of you nuts are.

Actually don't know if that's true. I don't know if that's true either. Anyway, hope you're doing well, Wednesday people. Do you have a small wonder? Do you have one? I've been playing this game lately that's really wild. It's called UFO 50 and it is made by a few different people, but the idea is that it is a omnibus

of this fictional game developer's work that made 50 games for the Nintendo, the Nintendo Entertainment System. So it's all 8-bit graphics, all takes on genres that were really kind of the hot ticket thing at the time, whether it's really simple shoot-em-ups or platformers or whatever, but it's 50 full games, not tiny little 50 full games,

not tiny little micro mini games, pretty chunky games, and I'm really enjoying it. It came out a month or so ago, and I was kind of lukewarm a little bit on it at first, but I hit kind of a dry spell where I haven't been playing anything, so having access to 50 original, unique games has been, I don't know, a nice thing to have.

I love having stuff like that. They used to make on Nintendo, I forget what they were called, it was like Clubhouse games, and it would be like chess and checkers and poker and solitaire and just like all these board games. I love having a little compilation of gaming opportunities.

Was that long enough? Yes. What you got? I wanted to talk about the little children's book that I bought that apparently is part of a series about Momo. Oh yeah, find Momo. Yeah, or where's Momo?

I don't know exactly what it's called. But it's a really cute little book. This little black and white dog is like hidden in scenes and a bunch of other stuff is hidden and your child's supposed to find the thing. And since I bought Gus that book, now when he sees like a friendly dog in a YouTube video, he refers to it as Momo.

He's like, oh, that's Momo. Not even close, totally different breed, color. A couple of times I've gotten him excited about going upstairs to go to bed by saying like, and we get to find Momo too. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to anything that can get that particular horse to drink the water at the well.

I remembered when we went through this phase with Henry, which is how we ended up with most of our children's book collection, and that the easiest way to get him to concede his day life was to prompt him with a new book that I had gotten. Conceding your day life is one of the more devastating ways to describe going to bed, I think. To consider going to bed every day a defeat.

For children, it definitely is. Like you wanna keep riding that wake train as long as you can. I guess so. And yeah, so I realized we had started to have trouble with Gus and getting him willing to go to bed. And I realized like, oh, when Henry entered this phase, we started getting books,

but it kind of feels like we have every book at this point. Every book ever written for Gus. I found Momo, and I was just so happy to see a book, not only that looked like it would be a good fit for Gus, but also that there were several of them. To describe the plot, it's Where's Waldo with a Dog. Yeah. You go first this week.

Okay. When you got ready for me. So this is something I was talking to you about, I believe yesterday, but I didn't know what it was called. And there is a name for it, and it is called the Hypnagogic State. Hypnagogic, Hypnagogic State. Okay, you were talking to me about this yesterday, and I had no ability to relate to what it was you were saying.

How do you know? How were you able to intuit what that? Maybe you should describe what the hypnagogic state is, and I'll try and figure out if it really is something that I can vibe with. It is the transitional state from wakefulness to sleep, also defined as the waning state of consciousness during the onset of sleep. Yeah, that is what seems strange to me,

because you were talking about how you love that feeling when things start to get kind of fuzzy and weird and you're excited because you're about to fall asleep. I never have that. I just have to lay still and empty my mind for long enough that it is the morning time suddenly. I think this is kind of like lucid dreaming in that if you can kind of train yourself to pay attention to it, you're more likely to notice it.

Never. But I saw some statistic that like only 40% of the population like can experience this state. Okay. But then I just then I also read articles that talked about it as just a transitional phase of sleep that everybody goes through. So yeah, for me, it is when I have laid down and I feel like I have started to kind of lose control

of my brain and I'm starting to wander down these paths that don't make any sense. I'll start thinking about something and it will transition me into a space that is not even worth thinking about because it's not actually real. Can you give me an example? I know that's a difficult thing.

I know, I wish I had written something down. I mean, it's just kind of like, I mean, there are examples in this, so I'll talk to you about that. And maybe that'll stir something for you. But a lot of people I think feel like, I closed my eyes and I immediately started dreaming. But it's not considered dreaming

because it's not REM sleep. So you know how like you lay down and you're like only asleep for two minutes, but you're like, wow, I already started having a dream. More likely than not, that was the hypnagogic state because it is connected with hallucin... You got it. It's connected with hallucinations.

Okay. I saw there was this very helpful video from Hank Green, actually talking about this state, saying that the hypnagogic state is more like watching short films where dreams are more like you are in the action. Like, hypnagogic state is more passive. And then like dreams are more like,

it is a lengthy plot that you are part of, that you are an actor in. So things that can happen in this phase of sleep is something called the Tetris effect. Oh, I know about this. Yeah, so people have spent a long time So things that can happen in this phase of sleep is something called the Tetris effect. Oh, I know about this. Yeah, so people have spent a long time at some repetitive activity before sleep, in particular one that is new to them,

may find that it dominates their imagery as they grow drowsy, a tendency dubbed the Tetris effect. Yeah, for sure. This can also occur for people who have traveled on a small boat or have been swimming through waves. Wait, huh? Not that, okay, so the idea is that you are taking something from your waking life and it is happening.

Okay, so like the rocket, sorry, I was shaken there by a small boat. Like it has to, if you are on a small boat, don't come to this state in a big boat. You will not experience it. It must be a small water craft, a sea-do, a jet ski. I think those are the same thing. It's like if you have been swimming all day

or if you've been out on a boat and then you go to lay down and you can still feel kind of the waves rocking or the motion of the water. That is kind of that same Tetris effect early sleep where your body is like taking something you've been doing and all of a sudden it is like part of you. Yeah, for sure. I do get that a lot,

but that always feels like dreams to me. That doesn't feel like some sort of pre-dream that's like getting me all psyched up for the full dream. Hypnagogic hallucinations are often auditory or have an auditory component. Like the visuals, hypnagogic sounds vary in intensity from faint impressions to loud noises like knocking and crashes and bangs.

People may imagine their own name called, crumpling bags, white noise, or a doorbell ringing. I don't have to imagine the white noise. I feel like this has happened to me too, where like your eyes start open because you feel like you heard somebody say your name or something. This has also happened to me.

But like I have done this or you have done this? I have done this. Okay. Not like I have heard you do this. I mean, I used to spring out of bed before we had kids. I used to spring out of bed in the middle of the night whenever I would hear any sound, like ready to defend my wife and my land.

I don't do that so much anymore, sorry babe, sorry land. I'm so sleepy. The hypnagogic, that word came from Greek words defining sleep and conductor or leader. The name for it was developed in 1848 by Alfred Morey. I love old dream science because it's like the wildest wild west shit where people were just like, well yeah, that's where the angels come

and God gives you a vision. Or like if you ate too many biscuits that day, you're going to dream of disease. Like they had like all of this wild, not real shit. For a long time, people thought that you just like, your whole body just entirely shut down. I've read an article in the Atlantic from 2016 that said, the hypnagogic state was first studied

as a part of the sleep disorder narcolepsy, where the brain's inability to separate waking life and dreaming can result in hallucinations. But it's also part of the normal transition into sleep, beginning when our mind is first affected by drowsiness and ending when we finally lose consciousness. The Hank Green video I watched said this phase takes about like 10 minutes, typically,

and it's considered non-REM sleep. A lot of people consider it stage one of sleep, which is just light sleep. But yeah, I mean, for me, it's like I'll start thinking about something and all of a sudden my brain has like shifted into something totally different that like I don't even really have to worry about,

but my brain is really puzzling through it. Like it's a consideration. That is incredible, babe. It's genuinely so alien to any process I try to use to fall asleep. I genuinely have to put effort into emptying my, I have to trick my brain basically into falling asleep every night, it feels like.

The idea of like hitting a subject and being like, I'm gonna vibe on this for a while. It doesn't like, that simply is not the way I feel like I experience falling asleep. So here is a trick that you can do. Okay. This is from a 2022 article in the World Economic Forum. We are at our most creative

just before we fall asleep, scientists say. Yeah. Next time you nap, try this novel approach to problem solving. Instead of nodding off completely, hold a small object in your hand. When it clatters to the floor and wakes you up, speak or write down the stream of thoughts

you were just thinking. This is how scientists have been researching a creativity sweet spot called hypnagogia, also known as N1, which is the first stage of sleep. I can't sleep if I am wearing socks. The idea that I could consciously hold an object in my hand and fall asleep and not just be thinking like, don't drop it, don't fucking drop it.

You're not asleep yet, so don't drop it because you're gonna try and write something you won't be able to. Yeah, this was something that was supposedly done by Thomas Edison, who allegedly napped while holding spheres in his hands. Of course he fucking did, what a dork. He probably did that because he heard Nikolai Tesla

slept with spheres in his hand and he was like, ooh. Salvador Adali apparently also um. Spheres. Well, not spheres. Guaranteed spheres. But that some of the images he painted were inspired by this phase of sleep. That I can see. That makes sense.

Man, I'm jealous. It sounds great. I think you can get there, babe. I don't think I can get there. I do feel like I have a surge of creativity as I am trying to fall asleep, and I begin to have ideas for stories and things. But to me, that's become very annoying

because it's like, I'm not gonna do anything with this right now. I would really prefer just to kind of go to sleep. I'm not gonna get up. Most of the time, I'm not gonna get up and be like, I'm inspired. I must not gonna get up. Most of the time I'm not gonna get up and be like, I'm inspired. I must grab my ink and quill. Yeah, I will say, I mean, as I have indicated,

I'm not good at remembering what specific things this has happened. The most lucid I can be is like, wait, what I'm thinking doesn't make any sense. Oh, I bet I'm about to fall asleep and then I'm usually out. So cool. I'm very jealous. Can I steal you away? Yes.

I'm excited for this one. You are going to think, you have talked about this before. I have not. I want to talk about the talk box. The talk box, the musical instrument effect device called the talk box. Do you know what the talk box is? Talk box.

Try it, it's good. Talk box. I really wanna distinguish between the sounds. Like my instinct is to say. Talk, talk, talk box. A box. Bah. Ta. Box. A box. Ta, ba. Are you doing vocal warmups right now?

A talk box. I'm trying to intentionally make those words sound different. The talk box is like a musical instrument or rather an attachment for a musical instrument that allows you to do crazy shit with your voice. Like 120 episodes ago, I did the vocoder as my big wonder, which a lot of people sort of confuse with the talk box,

but actually a talk box is sort of the opposite of a vocoder, and I will explain why. So there's not like a ton of examples of the talk box being used in like popular music, but the songs that do feature it are extremely memorable. Sweet Emotion by Aerosmith has it all throughout. Around the World is sung entirely in a talk box. Oh.

It's actually the only deaf punk song that uses a talk box. All the other ones are like synthesized or vocoded or whatever, it's like Around the world is the only one. The most iconic usage for me is in Tupac's California Love. Yeah. California.

So that's not a vocoder. That's not a vocoder, that is a talk box and that performance in that song is by a funk artist named Roger Troutman, who is like the Beethoven of the talk box, who just went bananas on that track. I wanna play a little clip of it right now. ["In the City"] So it sounds like synthesized or vocoded vocals, but if you know what to listen for, the talkbox actually has a pretty distinct sound, and that's because of the way it works.

And it's so incredibly simple. You just play notes on an instrument, usually like a keyboard, connected to a tube that goes into your mouth. And then the sound outputs through the tube into your mouth and then as you move your mouth, like you're singing, as you mouth the words, the sound just comes out of your mouth. It like makes you a theremin. It sounds, not quite a theremin,

but it makes you a vocoder essentially, right? The sound gets modulated by your actual mouth and how you're moving it. Fun thing that I realized, you can do this on your phone if you search like Talkbox on YouTube. There's lots of creators who have made like shorts of them just playing like playing the rhythm of a Talkbox like lyric. And then if you put like the rhythm of a talkbox lyric.

And then if you put the speaker of your phone in your mouth, you can just fake sing. I actually have one pulled up right now. If you listen, it's just, it's not words, right? ["Fake Sing"] Oh, Griffin has his phone in his mouth. It's not sanitary, but it's cool. There's other ones.

There's like a, I think there's like a blue da ba dee. ["Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Dabba it's just playing that song. But no, it was like a solid pitch, right? And you were changing. It's just a solid pitch. It's just them playing the notes and then you put it in your mouth and then as you move your mouth, it's like you're talking or singing. And it's like every time your lips would hit the phone, it would like. Yeah, but you're also moving your teeth, your tongue,

like your glottis or whatever the fuck. It's just like you're singing, right? You just move your mouth like you're singing notes, but you're not actually singing. Wow. It's just the sound is going into your mouth and coming're singing, right? You just move your mouth like you're singing notes, but you're not actually singing. It's just the sound is going into your mouth and coming back out, right? So that's the inverse of how a vocoder works. With a vocoder, you sing into a microphone

while playing an instrument, and then the sound of the instrument is shaped by your voice. With a talk box, it's the opposite. You're playing a sound on the instrument which goes into your mouth, and then that is what makes, that is ultimately what makes, like outputs the sound. And it is not like, I love the vocoder.

It's definitely a more practical tool because you can make it sound like anything, right? Like I think in the episode, I played like a Boney Veer thing and then I played like a Imogene Heap thing. It's like totally different sounds. But with the Talk Box, like if you think about songs that have Talk Box in it, they all do kind of sound pretty similar because ultimately like it's a sound that goes in your mouth and then your mouth can make

the sound kind of sound different. But it's just so unique. I'm just like crazy about it. So because of the kind of like shockingly low tech nature of the talk box, lots of different musicians and artists have sort of like come up with their own versions of it throughout history. The earliest example was from a steel guitarist

and like radio presenter named Alvino Ray. This was back in like the early 30s. And he would do this thing he called the singing guitar where he would play his steel guitar and the output of the steel guitar went to what was called a throat microphone, which is just like a little, like a choker almost with like a little microphone that kind of sits next to your.

It's actually what like fighter pilots wore to communicate, but he used it, it would be pressed against the side of his wife's neck who would be behind a curtain or would be hiding in some way. And then as he played the steel guitar, she would mouth the words and then it would sound like a singing steel guitar and he would take this show on the road,

all the radio people just loved this thing. I wonder if that's, cause you know people that have had to have their voice box, it's gotta be similar to that right? Maybe yeah, I don't know enough about that. Cause I know there's like something attached to the neck that like allows them to communicate. It's probably the same, it is probably the same.

Yeah, it's probably similar. I also saw there were, some of this technology was kind of related to like the artificial larynx, which may be kind of what we're talking about. I don't know, I don't wanna say anything about that, that if I don't know, I don't wanna speak out of my ass. So then there were like a few variations on that idea. A big one was called the custom bag with a K custom,

and it was like a clear tube, but it was attached to like a wine skin that an artist would wear like over their shoulder and then they would put the tube in their mouth and then the sound would go into, I don't know what the bag was for, but it's- It does sound like a bagpipe. It does kind of sound like a bagpipe a little bit,

but then like in like the seventies, you started to get just the like, it's a powerful speaker with a tube coming out of it. And one of the like major pioneers to end this segment, I always, I use the name Peter Frampton as like a joke name of like, oh man, I'm digging this framp, this framplitude right now, I love it.

But I don't actually know that much about the guy's body of work, but he was apparently a huge pioneer of the Talk Box. And in looking up what's the most amazing Talk Box performance ever, half of the responses that I would see to this question are like, oh, it's this one 13 minute long live fucking jam sesh off of Frampton Comes Alive.

Yeah, what is that song? Well, there's a couple on it that he rips up, but the one I wanna play here of him just jamming is called Do You Feel Like We Do? And I mean, is that not the song you were thinking of? There's one in a Reality Bites. Oh shit. It's like Ben Stiller's character is supposed to be lame

and he like- Loves Peter Frampton? Yeah, and there's a song in it that he like plays and that's how we're supposed to know that he's lame. It sucks. Oh, I think it's Baby I Love Your Way. Oh, okay. Is that Peter Frampton?

That's Peter Frampton, isn't it? I don't know, I don't think so. Oh, it's Big Mountain, which I guess was. I don't know that that song has Talk Box in it though. No, there's a part that I'm pretty sure does. Okay, well, I'm gonna play this one live Peter Frampton track, if that's cool. Just so people can hear Frampton shred.

That's the talk box. Do you wanna know what our friends at home are talking about? Are you still looking up this Peter Frampton song? We can pause recording, I just need to know. I'm gonna go with that. I'm gonna go with that. I'm gonna go with that. I'm gonna go with that. I'm gonna go with that. I'm gonna go with that. I'm gonna go with that. I'm gonna go with that. I'm gonna go with that. I'm gonna go with that. I'm gonna go with that.

I'm gonna go with that. I'm gonna go with that. I'm gonna go with that. I'm gonna go with that. I'm gonna go with that. I'm gonna go with that. I'm gonna go with that. I'm gonna go with that.

I'm gonna go with that. I'm gonna go with that. I'm gonna go with that. I'm gonna go with that. I'm gonna go with that. I'm gonna go with that. I'm gonna go with that. I'm gonna go with that.

I'm gonna go with that. I'm gonna go with that. I'm gonna go with that. I'm gonna go with that. I'm gonna go with that. I'm gonna go with that. I'm gonna go with that. I'm gonna go with that. wildest shit I've ever seen you do during a show. It's because you doubt me so much that I feel like I have to prove to you that I'm right. That Hey Baby, I Love Your Way has a talk box in it? Yeah, baby, I love your way. I'll play it for you later. You don't need to play me Hey Baby, I Love Your Way.

No, but I think there's a part. It's a specific part. You have, are you in the hypnagogic state right now? It feels like maybe. There is a version or a part of that song where it happens. And I am 90% sure. All we have to do is wait for this episode to come out. And then our Facebook group will let us know.

Please, defend my honor. Please. Here's what our friends at home are talking about. Brooke says, when you open the door of a public washroom and the motion activated lights are off and you can be 100% certain that there is no other people in there. This happens all the time at my work.

Like I work on a relatively large floor, but for whatever reason, seems like almost nobody is in the bathroom when I go in there. Crazy. And it's like when the lights are off, I'm like, all right. Or alternatively, when I go in there. Crazy. And it's like when the lights are off, I'm like, all right. Or alternatively, there is someone in there.

Who stopped moving. Who stopped moving long enough. For a long time. And now they're having a spooky dookie. Oh God, I hate that. I don't like it either. I kinda did like it. Max says, my small wonder is when I hold open a door

for someone and let them go first, then they open the next door for me and let me go first, then they open the next door for me and let me go first. I'm not a dancer, but it feels like I'm doing the considerate waltz with a stranger. I feel like this happens a lot at the mall because they always have the kind of like, whatever that is, that airlock.

You open the door for someone and then they open the next door for you and it's like, now we're even. The life debt is settled. I do appreciate that. Thank you to Bowen and Augustus for the use of our theme song, Money Won't Pay. You can find a link to that in the episode description.

Thank you to Maximum Fun for having us on the network. Go to maximumfun.org, check out all the great shows they got over there. We got some merch over in the McElroy merch store over at McElroymerch.com, including a new Do Not Drink mug inspired by Miggyie Mackerel from the McElroy Family Clubhouse, streaming every Tuesday on YouTube. And we don't have live shows coming up.

Yeah, you will have just finished when this comes out? We're in the middle of a tour when this comes out. The middle, okay. Yes, we are going on tour during basically the election. So those shows are gonna be something else. Like a real daily show. I guess if you're listening to this on release day, we are gonna be something else. Like a real daily show. I guess if you're listening to this on release day,

we are gonna be doing Taz in Indianapolis tonight with Aabria Iyengar and then tomorrow we're gonna be in Milwaukee doing my bim bam. There you go. There you go. That's it though. We are going to, I don't know what I'm about to do when we get off this call.

You know exactly what I'm gonna do. I know fucking exactly what Rachel's going to do, which is the deepest Google dive. I'm going to hear that song echoing down the hallways of our home. And then I will hear you sort of shout, try like, ah, as you find it. Found it, I'll run in wherever you are.

I can't wait, babe. And I hope you're in the shower and I can like burst in. It's like a thing that I want to do. All right, samezies, I guess. Bye. Money won't pay, work it on. Money won't pay, work it on. Money won't pay, work it on. Maximum Fun, a workaround network of artist-owned shows, supported directly by you.