Thursday, January 13, 2011

Myth adventure

Mythbusters nights at the Old Entomologist are usually calm events. We might set out to test whether adults of Bassaris gonerilla (the Red Admiral butterfly)* do indeed like to get drunk on fermented beech-tree sap as the name suggests, or how many NZ pygmy slake-moths are required to carry a normal-sized human being away to their lair as food for their hideous spawn.
Things turned unusually rowdy last night. The original intention had been to test the properties of Christmas Ale empirically but things went swiftly downhill. We know for certain now that if you drink enough of the stuff then variegated tapeworms fly up out of your mouth, but that was never seriously in doubt.

It is all very well for Another Kiwi who has led a horse to the water in the background and is now trying to make it sink. But I have no idea how it ended up with me there in the basket hanging from the pulley. Nor am I fully convinced that there ever was a myth in contention, that singing a D-note into a vase would somehow make me lighter and easier to suspend.

Also when did the Old Entomologist acquire the guard dog? It seems friendly at the moment but I can say from experience that you do not want it humping your leg.

* Some people call it "Vanessa gonerilla", but I rate for Field's conclusion (1971) that the NZ Red Admiral is sufficiently different from the rest of the Vanessids** to deserve a genus to itself.

** The uncus of the male is undivided in
Bassaris and bifurcate in Vanessa.

10 comments:

ckc (not kc) said...

you made me check my own uncus

fish said...

I think you F is a bit flat. I will not ask how you were harmonizing.

tigris said...

Who invited Satan? Looks like he was paying for that round as he is displaying a c-note.

Substance McGravitas said...

It seems friendly at the moment but I can say from experience that you do not want it humping your leg.

Given your incredible one-handed-pulley demonstration I would like to see a battle between you and the dog. And does the Christmas Ale ship well?

mikey said...

Hmm. Seems as if one might have gone on to identify the other patrons of the Old Entomologist that evening. If that's AK at "B", improving upon historical aphorisms by beating the horse BEFORE it's dead, and Smut at "F", claiming to be conducting some tonal experiment to conceal his prodigious consumption of Akavit, then who might be the naked fellow with the horns at "C"? And is that Tigris, far in the background, taking the opportunity of the bi-weekly bacchanalia to steal a baby from the overly quaint castle-shaped playpen to eat?

And what of the remaining revelers? Might that be Substance at the extreme far right, raising his cup in celebration of goatse, or perhaps another day closer to the longed-for nose job? Might the gent sitting at the table imploring ever more outrageous behavior be, in fact, a Bald Bastard, cleverly disguised by a hat? And I would presume the guzzler across the table to be Zombie, but he looks quite robust, so perhaps it is instead our inebriated friend Thunder?

Clearly, many questions remain outstanding regarding the night in question, and further elucidation is necessary...

tigris said...

Sheesh, Mikey, I don't eat babies, I'm a vegetarian. I just sacrifice them to Shub-Niggurath then bathe in their blood to stay perky-looking.

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

It's a shame that youse guys don't have a maraschino cherry factory down the road.

Unknown said...

Old alquemista says...laugh now, beheaded lion later.

wv, arsimoo, way too good to give up.

Hamish Mack said...

As I recall there was an experiment involving the tare weight of a horse compared to a man in a basket, and such.
Satan turns up, you're gonna turn him away? Have a nice time being a frog for 4,000 years. he didn't do too well on the Christmas Ale I think.
Also Evangeline Van Holsteren says could we put the lion/goat/fish head back on the wall as it has eaten the postie already.

fish said...

If Vanessa has gonerilla maybe she should get a shot or something.