Thursday, May 24, 2007

Holy Parthenogenesis, Batman!

I wanted to post this yesterday but got too involved in classes and then making it to the bike store to get my new bike (more on that in a separate post, assuming I don't break every bone in my body on my first test ride)...

Have you read about this??

I love sharks (even though I fear them), especially those freaktastic hammerheads, but this was just a bit creepy, I think because it reminded me of the great Shriekback song, "Nemesis," about, at least as I understand, a mass extinction. I'm thinking in particular of the line "Big black nemesis, parthenogenesis, everybody's happy as the dead come home."

Oh, I dunno, maybe the song is about breaking up with a girlfriend. In any case, it's a cool song and a cool story. Read it.

3 comments:

Tommy said...

Well, I guess I can write hammerhead sharks out of my dating pool...

And thanks a lot for putting that Shriekback song in my head for the next three days! Where is that Ace of Base tape? Where? Okay, that's an unfair comparison... At any rate, while we may be dating ourselves with the Shriekback references, at least we can take comfort in the fact that we had the good sense to seek out decent music in the Reagan years...

Dr. Virago said...

Hm, I have a vague memory that it was *my* good sense in the Reagan years that introduced Tommy to Shriekback...

But any way, yeah, now I have that song in my head and I have to go get it and listen to the lyrics again, because I'm thinking that maybe the song is about the second coming in a Yeatsian kind of way. Which kind of fits this shark story: what rough beast slouches towards Bethlehem this time?

As for parthenogenesis, I remember learning that concept in passing in high school biology and asking my teacher later to say it and spell it for me again (because I wanted to go home and tell my dad that the virgin birth was biological, not theological). But the bitch snarkily said, "Why, V, do you have a 'problem' you need to expalin to your parents?" OMG!

Just thought I'd share.

The Pastry Pirate said...

lol... actually, sometimes i think the song is about a coming mass extinction wrought by the folly of humankind. but then i also think they were just desperate for a word that rhymes with "nemesis."