polaris schmolaris

on this day in the year 1793 b.c., the star, thuban in the constellation, draco ended it’s two thousand year reign as earth’s de facto north star. it handed over the title to kochab (a scrappy upstart) whose successor would be (the much ballyhooed) polaris. while the succession was ineveitable, we can all be thankful that due to the 25,765 year axial precession of the earth’s platonic year, thuban will again start jockeying for the position in the year 29,707 a.d.

let us never forget that the north star is a title, not a name. (the much ballyhooed) polaris should not take its position for granted.

for wunderkammer: a paleolithic flute

q: what were you doing 40,000 years ago when your stone age neighbors were rocking out on paleolithic flutes made out of woolly mammoth femurs? a: you were probably some stinking monkey scratching your hairy butt with pinecones.

in celebration of the fact that you and me have had a musical culture that spans over 40 millennia, let us start a paleolithic flute/theremin jam band. IT WILL BE A POLITICAL STATEMENT and we will rock out on the top of the sphinx wearing sequins and goat hides.

is there any identity more confusing than the sea slater’s? he lives in the water but his dad was a land dweller. his grandpa lived his whole life in the water too but his great grandpa liked to scuttle over the land. and back and forth it goes in a game of evolutionary ping pong until his water-loving gggggrandfather was a single-celled organism named adam who ate an apple at the wrong time and all hell broke loose.

the great escape

on this day 5,000 years ago, the domestic dingo escaped into the wild, chosing a free and feral life over hegemonic subjugation. good on ya, dingo!