More magazine excerpts

[bunrab]

This week's Time "Milestones" page notes the passing of Arthur Lee, leader of the band Love. Most of you on LJ are not old enough to remember Love. Their album "Forever Changes" came out in 1967, and I bought it and still have it - the original vinyl. I also bought the CD when it got reissued, and that's what I'm listening to right now. Time describes the music as "psychedelic rock" but it wasn't really that far out; a lot of it was acoustic, and most of the electrified bits were only slightly electrified. Only a few wild electric guitar riffs. Perhaps the most psychedelic element was the lyrics, which made a lot more sense when I was an over-emotional teenager.

The New Yorker had an article on sugar in its May 22 issue. More precisely, it was "The Search For Sweet" and it was about both sugar and artificial sweeteners, and the search for newer artificial sweeteners that are more like sugar. Here's one paragraph I liked:

Humans are connoisseurs of sweetness. No other species is so particular. Cats can't taste sugar; neither can many dogs. Most other animals can't taste artificial sweeteners. (We know this, in part, thanks to an enterprising Swiss anthropologist named Dieter Glaser, who has offered them to fish, hedgehogs, tree shrews, primates, elephants, horses, cows, sheep, pigs, dogs, cats, mice, birds, reptiles, and swamp wallabies.)

Can't you just picture it, this Swiss guy in his lab, chasing a swamp wallaby around trying to force it to drink Tab? Go, wallaby!

Comments

I'm close to 49 years old...

[evilsithlady.livejournal.com]

...and I still don't remember that particular band. But then, that was the sort of stuff my parents were protecting me from, I guess! Or, more likely, it was a local anomaly that we didn't hear much of them where I lived. Sounds like music I'd enjoy, to be truthful. I rather like acoustic music that is peppered with electronica, though I am also a lover of Pat Metheny's more electric work.

Now, the idea of a scientist giving chase to a wallaby through the lab - THAT gave me my first laugh of the day!

Re: I'm close to 49 years old...

[bunrab.livejournal.com]

Hey, you're close enough that sooner or later we're gonna arrange a meetup in RL - remind me, and I'll loan you the CD then. (Perhaps next time we're down in VA at a military band concert?)

[momily.livejournal.com]

I'm old enough, and I remember.

[bunrab.livejournal.com]

Naaah, you're not that old - musta heard it from your parents :D

[avanta7.livejournal.com]

Cats can't taste sugar
~~~~~
Really? Wow. Mote is an ice cream fiend. If he can't taste the sweet, I wonder if it's the milkfat he's crazy for?

[bunrab.livejournal.com]

That would be my guess. All of the cats we've ever had have also been nuts about ice cream; letting them lick the bowls after we finish is a treat we occasionally give them.