magnetic liquid sculptures, bolivia bugs

Amazing art installation: magnetic liquid. I wonder how they manipulate it.

Also bolivia bugs own and i want them. I want them the size of puppies.

Also, haha: walking table. I don't know what all these videos have in common (they are all showing up as related) but I am digging it.

Also so awesome: magical table. I could watch this forever. I want one too. I have a vague mental list of stuff I would get if I was really really rich (I assume the table is expensive).

OH MY GOD, I want this too!

Magical chair. But can you sit on it? Yes, yes you can. SOMEONE FIND OUT HOW MUCH THEY ARE. They are made out of cardboard.

The Goat Gland Doctor and Mikhail Bulgakov

The Goat Gland Doctor: The Story of John R. Brinkley.

Brinkley, therefore, had all he needed to capitalize on the farmer's idea of goat-gland transplants: he was unethical, he had a wobbly knowledge of medicine, and he had witnessed the rambunctious behavior of goats. And he possessed one more thing: knowledge of experiments carried out in Europe beginning in the late 1800s.

These experiments must be the inspiration for the Mikhail Bulgakov novel, Heart of a Dog! I really need to reread that book. <3 And apparently there's a film of it, which I also need to see!

Brinkley went to work, implanting a bit of goat gonad in Stittsworth's testicle. Within weeks the farmer was back to thank the doctor for giving him back his libido. And when his wife gave birth to a boy, whom they appropriately named Billy, Stittsworth spread the word about Brinkley.

Haha. This guy is a little bit Dr. Nick, a little bit Dr. Moreau, and a little bit those-dudes-who-duped-the-emperor in The Emperor's New Clothes:

Brinkley was charging $750 per transplant, and he couldn't keep up with the demand. All men needed the Brinkley operation, he declared, but the procedure was most suited to the intelligent and least suited to the "stupid type." This, of course, ensured that few of his patients would admit that they had not benefited from the operation.

Uhh:

There were a few problems. Like when Brinkley decided to use angora goat testicles instead of those from the more common Toggenberg goat. Recipients of the angora testicles were decidedly unhappy—Brinkley himself noted that they reeked like a steamy barn in midsummer.

Presumably Toggenberg goat testicles don't make you reek?

The "doctor" then decided that the only way to get his license back was to become governor. So in 1930 he organized a massive write-in campaign, and he almost won.

Ahhh.

moonwalking bird, hagfish scones

Okay, I think wtf_nature is my new favorite livejournal community.

Check out this video of an amazing bird doing the fucking moonwalk. This bird has insane moves. I really don't understand how he glides backwards on the branch like that.

God, am I going to need a "dancing birds" tag?

Oh, and holy shit: Scones made with hagfish slime.

My new favorite site: FFFFOUND!

I wish I could register :(

Rideable!

Oh, and also, apparently ostriches are big enough to ride on. Mind blown, world rocked, desire to get ostriches increased even more. And I've always liked bison, too. I have to visit Bisonlandia.

*looks at some of her writing*

I rule.

Oh, did I mention I really want an ostrich? Because I know now that I want one. One day! *sigh* Ostrich. I wish they were big enough to ride on.

Also, lmao.

Valence

Oh, and I feel like I've recently experienced a sort of state-change with regards to my appreciation for or attention to sound, in my own poetry and others', and just in language generally. I think it's due to the prosody class. So I'm happy about that. It's like another electron bumping something up to the next valence level. Or something. Because god I don't know shit about chemistry but I was trying to use that metaphor with someone last night and they didn't know what I was talking about, so at least I know about valence levels. "Level" is probably not the right word here. Nor is "about," at it implies a bit more of a grasp than I have. "Of," maybe.

And apparently there are cool other meanings of valence, like in linguistics and psychology.

OMG, that's where "ambivalence" comes from! Holy shit, I never realized that.

Awesome seagull

Although eating chips isn't healthy, so I have mixed feelings about this.

My reading was yesterday. It seems to have gone over really well. And now back to reality and comparative un-glamour. Wait, I suppose the reading was reality too. Now at least I don't have to worry about what I'm going to read.

People seem to have liked the dog one and the geese one especially.

I made some insecure comments here but deleted them.

I have to revise a poem so I can send it to a visiting poet.

Water experiments in zero gravity

Zero-gravity water experiments!



Check out the Alka-Seltzer one at 2:00. It's the best one. :D

Leck mich im Arsch

"Lick me in the ass," a canon in B-flat major, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

No, I am not fucking kidding.

The lyrics are:

"Lick me in the ass!
Let us be glad!
Grumbling is in vain!
Growling, droning is in vain,
is the true bane of life,
Droning is in vain,
Growling, droning is in vain, in vain!
Thus let us be cheerful and merry, be glad!"

Ahahahaha I think this is the best thing I have seen all week, at least.

The phrase "lick me in the ass," here, is "apparently a reference to anal-oral contact." Hmm, is that so? Wherever did you come up with that interpretation?

Harry Belafonte

I knew Harry Belafonte ruled music-wise, but I had no idea just how much of a badass he was and is.

Dreadnought hoax

Also, I want to do things like this.

Not if it has to cost me whatever the modern dollar equivalent of 4,000 pounds is, though.

Spiders!!!!!

Oh my god, it's becoming Mirkwood!

*capers in glee*

I want to see it so fucking bad, but uh, I have to be here. D: I wonder when the next break long enough for me to drive down to Texas is. Those webs better still be there, even bigger than ever! I hope it stays permanently :D

Sailing for 1000 days, without ports or new supplies

I want to be doing this so bad.

Because it does not bark, and it knows the secrets of the sea

That wasn't Baudelaire, that was Gérard de Nerval. When asked why he took his lobster for walks through the streets of Paris, he said: "Because it does not bark, and it knows the secrets of the sea."

(I personallly [sic] doubt the whole story, but it is a fantastic line...)