HBM056: It Works Better in Movies

When Lina Misitzis was a teenager, she told people she was dying.  She wasn't.  But, an entire genre of "dying girl gets the guy" movies taught her that landing a boyfriend required a certain brevity on this planet.  She only lied to men, men she wanted to be with. 

Content Note: Explicit Content

That was more than ten years ago, but the guilt of exploiting imaginary illness for (failed) romantic gain stays with her to the present.  Julia Wallace, her therapist, thinks that Lina can overcome this guilt by re-writing the story of her teenage years, by calling three people she wronged and telling the truth.   So, Lina does.   

Music: The Black Spot, Serocell

Lina Misitzis produced this piece.  Jeff Emtman edited it with help from Bethany Denton and Nick White.

HBM043: Last Chance To Evacuate Earth

Steven Hill holds some of his Heaven’s Gate training. Photo by Lina Misitzis.

Marshall Applewhite met Bonnie Nettles in 1972, and together they built a religion. It was called Heaven's Gate, and it drew heavily from the bible, astrology, and Star Trek. Applewhite and Nettles believed they were placed on Earth to deliver a holy message. They were the leaders of their new religion, and they changed their names to Do and Ti (pronounced "doe" and "tea"). After Nettles' death, the group developed a larger, stronger following, its doctrine evolved—incorporating more and more elements of outer space and astronomical phenomenons. In 1997, Heaven's Gate became known to the public as the world's most infamous UFO cult, when 39 members (including Applewhite) ate poison and died in their Californian mansion.  They believed that the comet Hale Bopp was their exit to a higher life.  

Content Warning: Discussion of suicide.

If you're feeling suicidal, or know someone who is, help is available for you. Suicide is preventable.  We recommend reaching out to The Samaritans, who operate a 24 hour hotline at (877) 870-4673.  Callers outside of the US can look at organizations available in their country on this list from Suicide.org

But before all this, Heaven's Gate supported itself financially through web design. The cult created a small company called Higher Source, and together, members of the group would travel to different businesses and build them their first websites. It was through Higher Source that Heather Chronert met the members of Heaven's Gate. She was an employee of the San Diego Polo Club, and it was her job to work closely with two Higher Source web designers on the design and execution of the polo club's website.

Steven and Yvonne Hill of Cincinnati, Ohio found Heaven's Gate online. The two were unhappy with their lives in Ohio, and when they happened on heavensgate.com, it seemed like they'd found a religion tailor-made for them. Steven and Yvonne abandoned their lives in Ohio and moved to California to join the cult.  Steven was one of the last people to defect from Heaven's Gate before the comet lit up the sky and the believers of Heaven's Gate killed themselves. 

For background on this story, Lina Misitzis emailed a living representative (or representatives) of Heaven's Gate.  This document is their correspondence.

This episode was produced by Lina Misitzis.  The episode was edited by Jeff Emtman, Bethany Denton and Nick White.  Special thanks to Amy Isaacson. 

Music: Flowers, Swamp Dog, Serocell, The Black Spot  

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HBM030: Crickets, Cadavars, and Conventional Wisdom

This episode is a Grab-bag, it contains three segments that serve as follow-ups to the three most recent episodes of Here Be Monsters.

Part 1: Crickets on Tape

In this segment, Jeff takes apart his tape recorder and installs a knob to help him slow down the tape without using digital wizardry in attempts to de-muddy the waters after HBM029: Do Crickets Sing Hymns.  He bought some more crickets and slowed the cassette slowed down to 1/3 speed.  The results were telling, and surprising.

In that episode, we were talking about the confusion surrounding the bit of audio called God's Cricket Chorus by Jim Wilson.  In this segment we’ll clear up exactly what is known and exactly what is not about God’s Cricket Chorus and its derivative works.

Also, a correction to a mistake we made in Episode 29 about how digital audio is constructed for our ears.  In that episode we represented the final product of digital audio to be choppy, yet moving by too quick for our ears to notice its choppiness.  This is NOT the case.  In fact, digital audio is always converted back to analog before it hits our ears.  This is done with a device called a Digital to Analog Converter (DAC).  Here’s an article that explains this process very simply  (Page 4 is where the good stuff starts).  Big thanks to the two commenter s who pointed out this error.

Want to try stretching some crickets yourself?  Download this same set of cricket songs we used for the shows.

Part 2: Conventional Wisdom on the Future of the Four Humors

In HBM027: Balancing Act, Here Be Monsters producer Lina Misitzis delved into the rich history of the Four Humors, which was, for thousands of years, the way much of world understood medicine, the body and the universe as a whole.

While we never heard from Alain Touwaide in that episode, he was central to our research of traditional medicine.  He’s the director of the Institute for the Preservation of Medical Traditions in Washington DC.

He spoke with Lina about the foggy past and likely future of Humorism. 

HBM's very own time-pitch bending tape recorder

Jeff melted that hole with the soldering iron.  Turn knob clockwise to slow stuff down by up to 3x.

Here Be Monsters' true heroes.  These are the crickets you hear chirping in this epsiode.
 

At the Evergreen Washelli Cemetery.  This is where the University of Washington offers free burial for their medical cadavers.

Some people choose to have their names engraved, most do not,

This is one of the few ways to be buried for free.

Part 3: The Resting Places of Medical Cadavers

In HBM028: Johnathan’s Cadaver Paintings, Johnathan Happ, a grad student at the University of Washington, visits one of the cadaver labs on campus.  He spends a lot of time there, studying the bodies, so that he can make paintings of them in his studio. 

While that episode has a lot of information about the cadaver labs themselves.  We never got the chance to talk about  what happens to those bodies after their 3 year rotation in the lab. 

So, in this segment, Jeff goes out to the Evergreen-Washelli Cemetery in northern Seattle, where most of those bodies come to rest. 

Special thanks to two employees of Evergreen-Washelli who helped out with a lot of the background for this piece:  Sandy Matthie (Reception at Columbarium) and Brian Braathen (Funeral Home Manager)

Music: The Black Spot ||| Half Ghost  <-- New!

HBM027: Balancing Act

For thousands of years, Western Medicine thought it had itself figured out. Everything came in fours. There were four sensations, four fluids in the body, four kinds of people, and four elements making up the world. They were all related. There wasn’t one without the other. Everything was a balancing act, and it was called Humorism.

In recent history, vaccines, sterilization, and other modern treatments have pushed Humorism out of the picture. But traditions ingrained in culture, science, and religion for thousands of years don’t just vanish. While few people still eat lemons to balance their yellow bile, or willingly drain their blood at the barber shop, elements of Humorism still play into modern society. They can be hard to see, but trust us, they’re here.

Music from: Lucky Dragons ||| Nym ||| The Black Spot

Hey! Review HBM on iTunes! And like us on Facebook!

HBM020: Without Name

Please note: This is an early episode of Here Be Monsters that aired in 2013. This episode no longer appears on the official HBM feed. However, you can still download it here.

Eugene up and left for California one morning without packing a thing from his apartment in Brooklyn, New York. HBM producer Lina Misitzis and her roommate Adrian got the apartment at a discount. The condition, though, was that they took the place as Eugene left it—full of his left-behind life. For two years they enjoyed Eugene's magazine subscriptions, ate out of his bowls, slept on his old couch and used his designer spices.

Content Note:
This episode discusses sex work, drug use and animal abuse. We beeped the swears though.

In this episode, Lina goes back to her old neighborhood looking for nothing in particular. She's greeted by familiar faces, new tenants, and a series of loose ends that tell a modern ghost story.

Photos of Eugene’s apartment coming soon to the HBM facebook page

Music from: Phantom Fauna ||| The Black Spot ||| Swamp Dog

Please please please, review HBM on iTunes so that we can make their New and Noteworthy section.

Special thanks this week to the Brooklyn Historical Society.