Anyway, it’s pretty common for writers of fiction to confuse animal habitats, perhaps because they really don’t care too much. L. Frank Baum was no exception in this respect. In The Annotated Wizard of Oz, Michael Patrick Hearn writes, “A common error in both literature and popular usage is that lions are beasts of the forest (as in Bert Lahr’s “If I Were King of the Forest” in the 1939 MGM movie. They are creatures of the open countryside.” Actually, according to the first few pages that came up in a Google search for “lion habitat,” they do sometimes inhabit forests, but they usually prefer grasslands. I don’t know of any evidence that they live in jungles, despite a certain popular song having a lion sleep in the jungle, the mighty jungle. I believe even Edgar Rice Burroughs had Tarzan encounter lions in the jungle.

Baum made Oz a land where animals from pretty much any part of the world could co-exist. When the Cowardly Lion arrives in the forest he eventually comes to rule as king in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, he finds it inhabited by “tigers and elephants and bears and wolves and foxes and all the others in the natural history.”

What IS that animal on the left? Some kind of bear?
Later, in Magic, we find that the Forest of Gugu is home to an even greater assortment of animals. On p. 122, Baum describes a gathering of King Gugu’s subjects: “The smallest beasts were nearest the King’s rock throne; then there were wolves and foxes, lynxes and hyenas, and the like; behind them were gathered the monkey tribes, who were hard to keep in order because they teased the other animals and were full of mischievous tricks. Back of the monkeys were the pumas, jaguars, tigers, and lions, and their kind; next the bears, all sizes and colors; after them bisons, wild asses, zebras and unicorns; farther on the rhinoceri and hippopotami; and at the far end of the forest, close to the trees that shut in the clearing, was a row of thick-skinned elephants, still as statues but with bright eyes and intelligent.”

Baum states shortly after this that some of these were from the plains, some from the mountains, and some from the river, giving himself a bit more leeway as far as habitat goes. Still, an area that can support both a giraffe and a walrus would have to be pretty unusual by our non-magical standards. The habitat confusion continues in Ruth Plumly Thompson’s Cowardly Lion, which states that the people of the desert nation of Mudge had caught ten thousand lions in their own land. I’m not sure if this was carelessness on the part of Baum and Thompson, or an indication as to how unusual Oz is. I don’t know that many readers even noticed, but I find it rather curious.

So that’s the reasoning they use (if it can be considered “reasoning”), but why was anyone looking for the Devil in barcodes in the first place? That seems to be part of a larger trend. The source of the number 666 being evil is in Revelation 13:11-18: “And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live. And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred threescore and six.” The generally accepted historical interpretation is that this refers to the Imperial cult, in which the Roman Emperor was acknowledged as a god. This didn’t go over too well with Jews and Christians, who were only allowed to worship one god, and it’s pretty well established that even self-preservation isn’t a valid excuse for paying lip service to some other deity. As for 666, Hebrew gives numerical values to its letters, and Emperor Nero‘s name (Neron Caesar) written in Hebrew has the value of 666. If you remove the second N, then it becomes 616, a variant given in some early versions of Revelation. We can’t know for sure that this was what was on the mind of John of Patmos, but it makes sense. The thing is, people who are intent on the idea that the events of Revelation will occur in the future don’t buy this interpretation, and instead think it refers to a future ruler who controls the entire world. As such, fundamentalist are often against anything that even reminds them of 666 and a single government for the entire world, including barcodes, identification cards, and the United Nations. Anyone who knows anything about the UN realizes that it’s far from being a world government, but that’s what the more hardcore fundamentalists believe.

Mind you, if these people ARE right about Revelation, wouldn’t all this be inevitable, and hence pointless to oppose? Oh, well.

On a more serious note (as if there’s any way to make anything Newt says serious), the thing with space travel is that it really isn’t all that practical, as far as I can tell. What’s more significant is what it represents. When NASA put a man on the Moon, it wasn’t so much that they expected him to do anything there, but rather the sense that we as a nation can accomplish pretty much anything. The space program is a symbol of hope and imagination. And is that something we need right now? Well, it’s something we always need, but maybe not exactly the highest priority at the moment. If it comes down to a case of either coming up with a jobs bill or putting a man on Mars, obviously I’d favor the former. I really don’t think that’s quite how the budget works, however. It almost seems like, if we want to make any progress in space exploration, we need an enemy. When it was a case of trying to beat the commies, we couldn’t get astronauts up there fast enough. Maybe the problem contains its own solution, though. If popular culture is any indication, there are all sorts of aliens out there ready to fight against us. And if they have oil, that’s all the better.

1. All the problems in this country are your fault.

And when I say “your,” I mean people who need to work for a living. The remaining candidates seem to be agreed that the economic crisis could be solved if the lazy working stiffs would just show some initiative and self-reliance and start pulling themselves up by the bootstraps instead of whining. Never mind that you can have self-reliance coming out of your ears but it’s not going to help if no one will hire you. Or that, in a lot of cases, people get work because of connections, and that hardly demonstrates the power of self-reliance. I was disgusted when Herman Cain said that it’s your fault if you don’t have a job, but this is essentially the position of all the Republican candidates. Cain was just the only one who came out and directly said it. Don’t you just love to hear the rich blaming the poor for everything?

2. Republicans admit they’d do a bad job.

Not in so many words, of course, but it’s implied. They’re constantly going on about how you shouldn’t rely on the government for anything, and yet they all want to be the most powerful official in said unreliable government. There are obviously many things for which you shouldn’t rely on the government, but if you can’t rely on them for ANYTHING, why even have a government? So when these people say stuff like that, what I hear is, “You won’t be able to count on my administration for ANYTHING!” Hardly a selling point, to my mind.

3. Nothing these people have said or done in the past matters at all.

That’s not just the distant past, either. A significant part of the most recent debate consisted of candidates denying things they said in commercials that are currently running. Or if they’re not outright denying, then they insist what they said or did in the past is irrelevant. Remember Newt Gingrich giving the smackdown to a moderator who wanted to discuss his past behavior? Sheesh, why not just admit you were wrong? Oh, wait, the Republicans have become the party that never admits to doing anything wrong. America should never apologize! So I guess the only thing left is trying to weasel out of past statements and actions.

4. Under the current health care system, we have amazing freedom of choice, which Obama wants to get rid of.

Over and over, we’re told how great it is that Americans can make their own health care decisions, and choose their own doctors. What United States are these guys living in? Oh, right, the rich and oblivious United States. If you’re someone who can’t afford expensive medical procedures out of pocket, you’re typically limited by what your insurance will cover if you have it, and confined to free clinics and emergency rooms if you don’t. There’s really not that much freedom of choice. And really, even if you DID have total freedom to see any doctor you wanted, who has the time or the inclination to check out every doctor in the area? Well, maybe some people do. For my part, though, I don’t care so much about being able to choose my doctor as long as I can stop going to one who sucks. And as for “ObamaCare,” I don’t know all of its provisions. I do know I’m not too keen on the mandate part, but I’m very much behind the expansion of coverage. How is that a bad thing? I’ve come across no real evidence that Obama wants to take away your right to choose a doctor, especially not if you can afford to see any doctor you’d like.

5. Ronald Reagan was God in the flesh.

And very floppy flesh it was, too! Seriously, though, I was born in 1977, which was during the Carter administration, but Reagan is the first president I really remember. I’ll admit I didn’t pay too much attention to politics when I was a kid, but it often seems like the main praise Reagan receives is, “Everyone thought he would start World War III, and he didn’t!” His main claim to fame is that he was an actor who entered into a success political career. To the modern Republican Party, however, Reagan was the Messiah. If you actually met Reagan, then you were touched by God. Like that other guy who is thought to have been God in the flesh, however, what he actually said and did doesn’t matter all that much. People who consider themselves Reagan Republicans these days don’t generally have policies that are too much like their hero’s. Funny how that works out.

6. Europe is Hell, and socialism is Satanism.

I forget which candidate is was who said something about the United States turning into a European socialist welfare state, but they all seemed to agree with the idea. So wait, if Europe is made up of “welfare states,” does that mean everyone on that entire continent (which isn’t really a continent, but that’s another issue) is on welfare and nobody works? Obviously that’s not true, so what the hell are they on about? Americans sometimes seem to forget that there are a whole bunch of countries in Europe, and while some of them aren’t doing all that well, others are considered to have a higher quality of life than our own nation. As for socialism, why is that such a bad idea? No one is saying we should become totally socialist, just to incorporate more of a sense of fairness and generosity. Even the Republicans probably don’t want to do away with social programs entirely, as much as they might claim they do. And Obama, who is branded as a socialist by his opponents, doesn’t strike me as any more of one than anyone else. Really, I wish he were MORE of a socialist than he is; his administration caters to the rich almost as much as the Republicans do.

Some older images of Kokopelli show what looks like a pack on his back, and many legends have sprung up regarding what might be in the bag. He’s sometimes regarded as a trader, bringing corn, gifts, or even songs. Another popular legend has it that he brings babies to women. As for the flute, it is often thought to have mystical properties. Since he’s a horny fertility deity, he’s sometimes thought to use the flute to attract women, much like Pan or Krishna. Zuni cutlure in particular has him using the flute to summon rainclouds.

Since Kokopelli is given so many different functions, it’s likely that nobody really knows exactly what he represented when people first started drawing him. There’s even been some speculation that he was made to resemble a Spanish trader, but since Kokopelli images have been found from before the Spanish came to that area, it’s rather unlikely. Sometimes he’s even shown looking like an insect.

It’s hard to say, but that doesn’t stop Southwestern merchants from putting him on everything.

I would say that one of the major pioneers in bringing the accordion into nerd culture is Mr. White and Nerdy himself, “Weird Al” Yankovic.

He’s been playing the instrument since he was a kid, the story he’s told many times being that his parents enrolled him in accordion lessons because they wanted another accordion-playing Yankovic. Polka musician Frankie Yankovic was not, contrary to popular rumor, related to Al; but he was influential in this decision on his parents’ part. I understand that Al eventually began playing along with popular records on his accordion, Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road being a favorite of his. I have to wonder how an accordion-based rendition of, say, “Funeral for a Friend” would sound. Anyway, when Al entered the world of comedic music, the accordion likely worked as a gimmick due to the fact that no one expected to hear much if any of it in pop music.

There’s accordion on every song on Al’s self-titled debut album, but he tended to use it less as he started making his parodies more polished and closer in arrangement to the originals. He’ll still use it for the occasional solo, however, and every album since his first has including a polka medley of popular songs. Well, every album except Even Worse, for some reason.

So is it “even worse” BECAUSE there’s no polka medley?

I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention my personal favorite band, They Might Be Giants, which also makes significant use of the instrument.

Not surprisingly, there’s a pretty significant overlap between Al and TMBG fans, although at least in the early days TMBG themselves weren’t too fond of the comparison. In a way, I can understand their desire to disassociate themselves, since even though TMBG uses humor in a lot of their songs, they’re not comedy musicians the way Al is. I also get the impression, however, that the fact Al himself is a fan of TMBG has only helped both in the long run. TMBG have become nerd icons, even though the members themselves don’t seem to appreciate this categorization. I seem to recall John Flansburgh saying that “nerd” was always a pejorative in his youth, which is part of why he doesn’t like it, but I’m not sure that’s all. I can’t help but remember the scene in the TMBG documentary Gigantic where Ira Glass talks about how he tried to tell the Johns that Belgian expressionist painter James Ensor was an unusual subject for a song, and they just replied, “But he’s a good painter!” So maybe they’re a bit in denial about their own geekiness. As for the accordion itself, I remember John Linnell saying that he took it up because it was portable and he had some good associations, like zydeco music. Its lack of popularity at the time might well not have had anything to do with it, but this is a guy who made prominent use of a carousel band organ on his solo album, so who knows? I’m not musically inclined myself, but people who know these things have said that Linnell rarely if ever uses the bass and chord buttons on his accordion, instead playing it as basically a keyboard with bellows.

When mentioning accordions and nerds, there’s also Steve Urkel from Family Matters.

I’m not entirely sure why they chose to have him play the accordion, but it’s probably just because he was written as an annoying character and it was considered an annoying instrument. The fact that he was also a nerd must have influenced the connection, however, and I have to wonder if Weird Al was on the minds of the writers.

Also, while not strictly related, I found out while searching Google for pictures that Christina Hendricks plays the accordion.

The concept of unwinnable games played a role in the Captain SNES comic, specifically in regards to the game Berzerk. I don’t recall having played that game, but it’s pretty famous, and a hit with grandmothers everywhere.

Anyway, the relevant comics start with this one.

I think the thing with Evil Otto in particular is that, since he’s the main nemesis and all that, you WANT there to be a way to kill him. Same deal with the similar Shadow in Shamus, a game I used to play quite a lot. Apparently that one is winnable, inasmuch as there’s a set end to the levels, but I don’t think you ever kill the Shadow.

There’s actually a TVTropes page on enemies that show up after you’ve spent a significant amount of time in a certain place, like Evil Otto and the Shadow. By the way, it’s been reported that two people died of heart attacks while playing Berzerk. Holy Zeus, Otto really IS evil! No wonder he’s one of the ten most terrifying video game enemies of all time.

Getting back to my main point, regardless of Alex Williams’ childhood optimism, most of these unwinnable games are known to be unwinnable. There’s no deception involved; they were just made to go on indefinitely. And if there really were a game that purported to be winnable and really wasn’t, news of this would probably reach the Internet very quickly.

Footloose – When kids die in an automobile accident on the way back from a dance, the town bans dancing. I guess if the kids had been on their way back from a bakery, the town would have banned baked goods. Yeah, the premise makes no sense, but I’m sure it’s no weirder than a lot of real-life laws in small towns. Anyway, a smart-alecky newcomer seeks to revive the lost art of dancing, and is eventually allowed to hold a dance outside the town limits. John Lithgow stars as a preacher who’s overly influential in the community. One thing I’m glad the movie brought up was the bit in the Bible about King David being a dancing fool, to the point where he embarrasses his wife. People going into crazy revelry when under the spirit of the Lord is pretty common in the earlier part of the Old Testament.

Fame – Not so much a dance movie as the others, but there’s still dancing involved in it. It’s a slice-of-life sort of film that chronicles the experiences of a group of students at a performing arts high school in New York City. Really, I have to say it came off as a bit depressing overall, even though they tried to end it on a positive note. I appreciated that it was very much in favor of interracial dating.

Flashdance – The story of a girl in Pittsburgh who works as a welder by day and an exotic dancer by night, and dreams of becoming a ballet dancer. Oh, and she dates her boss. This plot kind of sounds like it was generated at one of those improv shows where they have the audience yell out suggestions. “Okay, now name another occupation!” It was pretty good, although it kind of left the audience hanging at the end. Probably most memorable for its crazy eighties fashions, including legwarmers and collarless shirts worn off one shoulder.