Wordless Wednesday featuring Shallot (2nd Edition)

Johnny Conqueroo

Muddy Waters

Gabriel and I were watching The Last Waltz the other night, a film we both know well. The music is quite familiar, the performances legendary at this point. But when it got to the Muddy Waters song "Mannish Boy" we both agreed that we must be mishearing one of the lyrics. The song seems to go:

I'm a man,
I spell m-a-n...man

I goin' back down,
To Kansas to
Bring back the second cousin
Little Johnny Conqueroo

Johnny Conqueroo? What? I thought about other blues standards and realized that I'd heard this before. For instance, "Hoochie Coochie Man", also sung by Muddy Waters:

I got a black cat bone, I got a mojo too,
I got the John the Conqueroo, I'm gonna mess with you,
I'm gonna make you girls, lead me by my hand,
Then the world will know, the Hootchie Cootchie Man

A little research solved the mystery: Johnny Conqueroo, also known as John the Conqueror or John de Conquer, is a hero in African American folklore. He was an African prince, sold into slavery in America, who could not be broken by his "masters". He entered mythology as a sort of trickster figure, famous for his prowess at evading those that would bend him to their will. Zora Neale Hurston wrote about him, and there seems to be some evidence that Br'er Rabbit of the Uncle Remus tales is patterned after him.

So why is he in the songs as an object and not a person? It turns out that he is associated with a type of root that supposedly has confers luck in gambling and sexual conquest through sympathetic magic. Some sources say that the plant in question is St. John's Wart, but this doesn't seem right since it has filamentous roots. A better candidate is Ipomoea jalapa, a vine related to morning glories and sweet potatoes. The root of this plant is more like a tuber than a filament. And there's no getting around the fact that when dried it looks like testicles. 

So, another song lyric puzzle solved! Unfortunately I don't think the explanation for all those possibly misheard Pogues lyrics will be as easy.


Thank you to Google Image Search for the photos.

Wordless Wednesday featuring Cooper (4th Edition)

Squirrel Appreciation

postcard available from
 http://oldmapsandprints.etsy.com 

This has been a bit of a stressful month so far. First we caught the plague at Comicon, then our (three year young) hot water heater went supernova and spewed water all over Gabriel's studio. Then, on the same day, we discovered that we needed a major plumbing repair in the yard. Clearly, things weren't looking up.

So it was a great relief to see this squirrel massage video. I swear, it turned my entire month around!

T-shirt available from
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With that in mind, I thought maybe some squirrel appreciation might be in order.


Yes, squirrels can be jerks. I used to work with wild fox, ground, and grey squirrels, and I can assure you that, pound for pound, few animals inflict as much pain when they bite you.


Even in my current job as a zoo keeper I'm not immune from squirrel antics. Just last week one snuck into my food prep area while I was making dinner for (ironically) our squirrel monkeys. I guess none of the food was to his liking though, since he simply urinated on the celery before scampering off.

Does this make me dislike squirrels? Hardly! It does make me appreciate them for what they are though. Cute and cuddly? Not really, although you wouldn't know it from that video. Bad ass? You bet! Watch out world, here comes a squirrel! And me too, as soon as I get our house put back in order.

Wordless Wednesday featuring Mountain Tapirs!

Wordless Wednesday featuring Emmett (4th Edition)

The Sounding Sea

Comicon 2010 is done, and unlike most years I didn't come home with a million strange little trinkets, lip balms, and tote bags advertising shows on the USA network that I will, no doubt, never see. This time I just said NO to extraneous plastic.

But that doesn't mean that I came home empty-handed! In fact, Gabriel and I made one of our greatest Comicon finds ever on Saturday: an original poster for the wonderful cult film Night Tide. If you have never heard of this film it is definitely worth finding and watching. Written and directed by Curtis Harrington in 1960, it's an obvious homage to the Val Lewton films of the 40s. It's also Harrington's first full-length feature; up to that point he had been known for his experimental short subjects.

A very young and surprisingly fresh-faced Dennis Hopper stars as Johnny Drake, a young seaman on shore leave. He soon meets Mora (Linda Lawson), a woman who believes herself descended from a race of sirens. They bond in a jazz club that you wish really existed but of course wouldn't be half as cool if you really went there. And that's just the set up, before you learn that Mora lives in an apartment on the Santa Monica pier. Above a carousel. With a semi-tame seagull that comes and goes as he pleases. It's also before you learn that she works in a cheesy sideshow as a "mermaid", floating in a tank of water all day. Felling the psychosexual vibe yet? If not, just stick around for the dream sequence which involves Mora emerging from a bath, dropping her towel for Johnny, turning into an octopus, and trying to kill him.

All of this makes the film sound much cheesier than it really is. Sure, it should come off that way, but somehow it skirts the line and tumbles down into the wilder, more spell-binding territory of dream logic. Some of the imagery is truly stunning, and by the end you really feel for poor Mora, and for Johnny too. And for the moody Santa Monica of old, filled with hot jazz clubs and spooky sideshows which exert their own siren song despite having never really existed either.