106 - Death: Heads will roll with Heavy Souls

Hey everyone. 

This was an interesting episode (aren't they all though?). In basically every episode we feature someone or groups of people dying, but this one focused more on the rumors and myths many of us have heard surrounding this often terrifying and eventual reality. Like most things, we deal with it with curiosity, some reverence, and of course, humor. 

What I found fascinating about these topics in particular is many of the myths stem specifically from religion and general 19th/early 20th century mindsets. There was a lot of goings on that people weren't equipped to empirically study yet - and I do not mean that with the typical condescending tone of, "Everyone used to be dumb and didn't understand science." The fact is a lot of the tools weren't available and (this is probably the biggest cause of misinformation) our understanding of the human body was incredibly rudimentary until the later into the 20th century. Even now we still barely understand what's really happening under the hood, so it's easy to imagine why people were incredibly confused when they'd see their deceased loved ones had apparently grown more hair and longer fingernails. 

My favorite part was, without question, Ryan's reading the story of Languille. He worked it ahead of time, channeled his inner Dan Carlin (penalty shot I know), and delivered a beautiful, tragic episode in two brothers' lives. What made this moment so satisfying wasn't just the content, but how he really did display the reverence and gravitas of the situation. Radio, podcasts, any sort of audio-only format can be an incredibly powerful tool for storytelling that's also very limiting, so when you experience something truly visceral like that (Josh and I sure did), it's incredibly impressive. 

So that about wraps it up. Thank you as always for listening, and thank you for taking the time to read my ramblings. Cheers.

-Greg