Olly-olly-olly-olly-olly-olly oxen free

I'll be seeing the Mountain Goats twice in the next two days. And that's a great thing. I'm very excited. I've been listening to a mix I made of all the songs about the Alpha Couple. It's rabid music. And with a textual depth that few of John Darnielle's contemporaries can match. Check out the FAQ on a fan site, helps appreciate the more complex aspects of his songwriting.

Good music can edify ones own cloudy feelings. Give form and meaning to what we think to be inexpressible. And also teach us. Ideas that have haunted those of other ages can be brought back to life by music. A great song is like a magic key that unlocks something that's always been inside you, waiting to come out and be understood.

quetzalcoatl comes through

he came spitting fire
on a day like no other
tried to hold you near to me
i heard him passing over
he made a banquet for the stray dogs of the air
he put our love in clear perspective

blue, red and green plumage
trailing behind him now
swaddling the sky in its aftermath
the last day coming down
he made a banquet for the stray dogs of the air
he put our love in clear perspective
rising, rising, rising, rising

From the Mountain Goats FAQ:
Quetzalcoatl, god of civilization (and chocolate!), was identified with the planet Venus and with the wind; he represented the forces of good and light pitted against those of evil and darkness, which were championed by Tezcatlipoca. According to one epic legend, Quetzalcoatl, deceived by Tezcatlipoca, was driven from Tula, the Toltec capital, and wandered for many years until he reached his homeland, the east coast of Mexico-where he was consumed by divine fire, his ashes turning into birds and his heart becoming the morning star. Another version has him sailing off to a mythical land, leaving behind the promise of his return.

quetzalcoatl is born

it's a cold night in sonora
and the stars are out in full force
it's a moment the world has been waiting for
when you set the world back on course
into the fire you go (2x)

it's a strange gathering around you
and the lord of the snails is born
five minutes before you take on divinity
you hear the crackling, well you hear the snapping corn
into the fire you go (4x)

NY Mag Article on Biology of Sexual Orientation

Here's an interesting article in New York Magazine on the biology of homosexuality,

One of the riddles still vexing geneticists is why only 50 percent of gay identical twins share a sexual orientation with their sibling, despite being genetically identical. “We know from all sorts of research that it’s not your upbringing, not relationship with parents or siblings, not early-childhood sexual experiences and whether you go to a Catholic school or not,” says Sven Bocklandt, a geneticist at UCLA. “What I believe is that it is the ‘epigenetics environment,’ meaning the environment on top of our DNA—meaning the way that the gene is regulated. If you have identical twins, the genes are identical, but they are used differently. Every man and every woman has all the genes to make a vagina and womb and penis and testicles. In the same way, arguably, every man and woman has the genetic code for the brain networks that make you attracted to men and to women. You activate one or the other—and if you activate the wrong one, you’re gay.”

=====

Some critics of sexual-orientation researchers blame them for minimizing the role of experience in determining our affectional course in life. The feminist biologist Anne Fausto-Sterling has waged a constant battle against their research, which she calls “a big house of cards” that ignores the power of environment in creating personality. Nurture, she argues, can and should be studied as a link to sexual orientation. The baby penguin raised by her two dads is a potential case study—though genetically unrelated to either parent, in the last few mating seasons she has mated with another female.

The rush to declare a biological mandate is motivated by a political agenda, says Fausto-Sterling, the author of Sexing the Body, who is married to a woman after a marriage to a man. “For me and for any feminist, I think it’s a pretty fragile way to argue for human rights. I want to see the claims for gay rights made on moral, ethical, legal, and constitutional bases that don’t rely on a particular scientific view of sexual development.”

And according to the wikipedia entry on Biology and sexual orientation,

The Advocate, a U.S. gay and lesbian newsmagazine, reported in 1996 that 61% of its readers believed that "it would mostly help gay and lesbian rights if homosexuality were found to be biologically determined".[23] A cross-national study in the United States, the Philippines, and Sweden found that those who believed that "homosexuals are born that way" held significantly more positive attitudes toward homosexuality than those who believed that "homosexuals choose to be that way" and/or "learn to be that way".[24]

Also mentioned in the David France, New York Magazine article,

Sheep are among 500 animal species where homosexuality has been documented. They are also among the few who practice exclusive homosexuality, like many humans. In any population of sheep, about 8 percent of males show exclusive homosexual behavior. Little is known about the romantic life of Sapphic sheep because ewes tend to express their sexual interests by standing entirely still, yielding no clues about their partner preferences.

WikiLists or WikiGold?

List of English Words of International Origin

And if you want to see lists of famous people by cause of death, or a list of people known as The Great, check out the Lists of People.

WikiLists are becoming my new favorite thing about the internet, it's more information than I could ever hope to devour. But not so much information that I couldn't peruse it all, if I could see it all at once.
We need some WikiAlchemists to transmute this lead into gold. Lead's useful, but gold's more fun.

EDIT:
More mind numbing list fun:
Countries & Age Structures
Unfortunately the structure is based on working age, not voting age. (0-14, 15-64, 65+)

Monsters & Metahumans

Aggregated mostly from Boingboing, here are some links.

List of Cryptids
One of my favorite things on wikipedia are the lists. This one is a good starting point in all cryptozoological research, and also a good case for a revolution in visualization of information. More on that later.

Ray Harryhausen Creature List
More monsters, now from stop montion dynamo Ray Harryhausen. I really like Kali, from the 1974, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad.


A Sixth Sense for a Wired World
Wired magazine reports on the new tiny fad of putting a tiny magnet into your ring finger to aquire a sixth sense, an electromagnetic sense. The operation is done by body modificationists, and so there is no anesthetic, save ice.

People with magnetic implants can't erase hard drives or credit cards. They don't set off airport metal detectors or get stuck to refrigerators. The magnets are small, and once encased in skin, all they do is react next to nerves, conveying the presence of sufficiently strong electromagnetic fields. "The magnetic implant is not the most sophisticated or rich sensation, it was just the easiest to implement with our available technology," says Huffman.

Your new electromagnetic sense will let you detect a live wire, and if you are like author/guinea pig Quinn Norton, your magnet's protective silicone sheath might break down and your body will infect and dismantle the magnet. But Mr. Norton says that his sense returned, diminished, four months later when the magnet reassembled itself.