queen victoria

[bposside]

Queen Victoria is a profound song. I am a geneticist and I can relate to it for that reason. Queen Victoria staged the
"Great Exhibition" in 1851 and built the crystal palace ("I feel like an empty cast iron exhibition") to house it. She is also the source of an X-chromosome-linked hemophilia mutation that's run through the royal family, and the only time Gregor Mendel, founder of modern genetics, travelled abroad from what is now the Czech Republic he went to London to The Great Exhibition. "Let us be two severe giants, not less lonely for our partnership, who discolor test-tubes in the halls of science": these lyrics remind me of Watson and Crick who identified the double-helical structure of DNA as the molecular structure of genes. The human genome project is a cultural offspring of the Victorian/industrial revolution/crystal palace world view, a triumph of science and technology that is also anti-romantic in its modern re-definition of human nature, just like the song says. If you buy this, then you might also enjoy the 21 dialogs in "The Sopranos" about genetics.

[bposside]

*Didn't like "Jazz Police" much at first, but I listened to it because "Stick another turtle on the fire, Guys like me are mad for turtle meat" cracked me up. Then it grew on me and now I enjoy the whole song, turtles and all.

[John Etherington]

Look out, there's a monster coming...look out there's a monster coming...