ICYMI (reading the post this video is about) you can read it riiiiiight here 👉 “Six Degrees of Ideation”
If you’d rather I read it to you, I am happy to do so.👇 Reading commences as soon as you hit play. Enjoy!
Notes from the Captain
My fascination with brains continues. Is mine made of glass? Jello? Nerf foam? Depending on the time of day, I think it’s made of any number of things including what I just listed, and each type of material dictates how I think at that moment. Silly putty? Silly ideas. Rock? I’m stubborn. And on the days when the ideas are so hot they turn to glass—those are the most delicate and dangerous.
I handle with care. I handle delicately. I cool them by degrees.
And in doing so, I wrestle things into the light.
Here’s an update you won’t be expecting. This is the last episode of Behind the Streams. Don’t worry! The Stream newsletter—the writing—and the podcast, Field of Streams will continue as per usual, but I will no longer be making videos to go behind the scenes of everything I write.
I’d like to thank everyone who has watched even a minute of one of the almost 70 episodes of the show. It’s obvious I still don’t know how to color grade correctly, but I have learned so much over the past two years of making it. It’s time to retire it. While I do enjoy making the videos, I have found myself starting to sigh a lot when I need to get off my arse and write notes, film, and edit. It takes time.
Time I want to use for other things.
Retiring this section of the newsletter was not an easy decision. I’ve been going back and forth on if I should since January. But this is how I know this decision is the right one—the second I decided this would be the last episode (three days ago), a weight was lifted and I was filled with excitement.
I have always made things. Lots of different, dumb, no-reason-for-it, things. For two years, I’ve made THIS thing, and now I just want to make other things. Simple. The experience of making THIS thing has armed me with the tools I need to make OTHER things, better.
What will I make with my camera? I HAVE NO IDEA! I did recently acquire a Super 8, so maybe something with that?
This is why I’m excited. The slate is blank. The heat is rising.
Ideas, coming in hot. I will do my best to not let those ideas turn to glass.
Crew, let us all join together on the upper deck to salute Behind the Streams and thank it for its service as we walk it off the plank.
🫡 Your Captain
Janeen
PS: Whatever I make next, you will see it here, first.
Thangs from this episode…
👩✈️ Pompeii and Glass Brain Guy
I am not your teacher. The earth is your teacher. Or something. Behold, a piece of glass brain! This has never happened before.
Incredible. Here’s a video. It explains how things turn to glass, and also the issues with the theory of a brain turning to glass (or a glass-like substance). Ash clouds. It’s all ash clouds these days.
As I mentioned in my video, there’s a research paper on the curious case of the brain made of glass. You can find it here 👇
“Unique formation of organic glass from a human brain in the Vesuvius eruption of 79 CE” - Scientific Reports site
Stories
“Man's brain turned to glass by hot Vesuvius ash cloud” - BBC
“Vesuvius Turned a Roman Man’s Brain Into Glass. Now, Scientists Reveal How the Extremely Rare Preservation Happened” - Smithsonian Magazine
Ah, forget Romans with glass brains. The award for best brain BEHIND glass must surely go to Abby Normal?
Speaking of Pompeii, here’s a thing. Looks like Herculaneum copped it first.
👩✈️All about Glass
Jk, this is not all about glass. But I had to put down a number for how hot it needed to be to turn something into glass in last week’s piece and I settled on 3090°F even though that was the top range. For the purposes of my piece, I wanted to talk SUPER hot, then cool too quickly. Artistic License. It’s a thing.
On Corning’s site, there’s a little article called “How Glass is Made” and it states:
“To make sand melt, you need to heat it to roughly 1700°C (3090°F), which is approximately the same temperature a space shuttle reaches as it re-enters earth’s atmosphere.”
I also state in today’s video that there are over 350,000 known types of glass. I got that fact from here, which also mentioned that 2022 was the United Nations International Year of Glass. I missed it. DAMMIT!
Honestly, that 350,000 number probably does not include two of my favorite glass types: Philip and Ira. Enjoy.
And here’s Ira Glass on Mike Birbiglia’s podcast (which I love).
And of course the thing people always bring up when they talk about Ira Glass. 👇 A lot of animations have been made of this talk, but this was the original (I think?)
I mean, THIS is the ORIGINAL original with young Ira.
Ok. So that’s it. The last episode and last Behind the Streams post. I’ll try do a better job of including background materials in regular The Stream posts in the footnotes. I know some folks did enjoy these posts, even if all they did was look at the supplementary material, so I hope you’re not disappointed. New, different things in the future. Yay!
Thanks for listening/watching for the past two years. If you want to comment on any of the concepts in last week’s post—or just in general—feel free to leave a comment.
Your adoring and faithful captain, me 🫡
Shameless Podcast Plug
Listen to audio versions of early issues of The Stream on my podcast, Field of Streams, available on 👉 all major podcasting platforms 👈
Here’s Apple
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