excuses, justification, mitigation, apology

Dear all,

Please accept my sincere apologies for the prolonged absence. My summer research did not go as well as I would have hoped. The suspected mermouffloi were nothing but bog standard local sheep. That was a blow. And then this happened.

I promise that from now on I'll be more active in the blogosphere.

Warmest regards,

MT

Maybe Maybaaaaline?

As winter draws near (at least in the northern hemisphere), one might think that this is the time for caprines everywhere to start settling in somewhere warm. In these short winter days and long winter nights, many sheep might be tempted to hunker down, stay in, and, well, ruminate. Even given a thick warm winter coat, wind and rain can wreak havoc with a ruminant’s hair-do, and does nothing for the smoothly-complexioned sheep trying to maintain a youthful look.

Happily, science may now lend a hand. While geneticists seem content to meddle with sheep and goats in order to benefit humankind, science now gives something back to the ovicaprid suffering a bad-hair day. Or a no-hair day, if they’re recently shorn. Yes, image conscious caprines can now fight the signs of aging with their own range of skin-protecting products. We think these would nicely complement other products suggested by a reader (as always, though, consult the labelling carefully to make sure that products you're using don't combine to create some new, deadly chemical soup that would melt the face off of an unsuspecting ovicaprid). Bafflingly, our extensive phone-polls of high-street cosmetic retailers drew a blank; the spray does not, for now at least, appear to be easily available to the walk-in customer in the city centre. Wrinkly sheep may need to import the stuff from Australia for the time being. The market responds to demand, though, so next time you’re out, don’t hesitate for a minute to ask: ask for the sheep spray! Cold, prune-like ruminants the world over will thank you.

Goatferatu

Gather round. Stir up the embers and light the candles. And as the shadows cavort across the walls like convoluted grasping fingers, listen. For on this All Hallows’ Eve, the skein between the worlds grows thin, spirits are unleashed, and strange things stalk the moonlit world. And, as with all our “human” festivals, the goat is at the heart of it.

Yes, goats have their own terrors. Ancient enemies who envy and hate, who would hunt down and feast on their living blood, and make of their fleece grisly trophies. It is not only Carpathian peasants who need fear the Vampire. For out of the outermost dark, from the horrid chill of the empty space between stars, comes Something – how can we know what? – Something comes in search of the warm blood of the goat.

El Chupacabra. The Goat Sucker.

This fiend roams the Americas, from Maine to Chile, insatiable in a goat blood-lust frenzy, as implacable as Dracula, as fearsome as the werewolf, as cunning as an alien lizard/kangaroo UFO-pilot abductor beast: fanged, fork-tongued, reeking of sulphur, red-eyed, monstrous and screeching, hopping mad… It wants blood. A chicken will do. But it has an insatiable and particular penchant for goats. Unfortunate and defenceless ruminants have been found, dead and dehydrated, the tell-tale double puncture wounds in their neck. None are safe. No weapons – silver bullets, a crucifix – are mentioned as effective against this evil goat-sucker.

It roams free still. Its thirst is unslaked. Its hellish desires unquenched. Outside, in the dark, it is on the trail of warm goat scent. Full of hate, it crouches, waits, ready to pounce, hiding in the bushes, in the dark. Out in the night, beyond the tiny circle of flickering and uncertain light cast by your computer screen, beyond all the temporary lights you vainly strike against the encroaching darkness, El Chupacabra draws near. Fetter your livestock. Bring them inside. It may help, perhaps, for a little while…

Wordless.

If there has been a slight lacuna in posting, we apologise. Even now it is an agonising effort to type these few halting words. For the whole delicate, complex and finely balanced machinery of the OVM G.O.A.T.S offices, usually such a buzzing hub of nuanced and highly textured semiotic debate, has been struck dumb. Before a dozen screens in central command, our operates sit, and stare, aghast, at - but wait. Few of you will be able to stand this. Gird your loins, I beseech you; restrain your wrath. The OVM has no wish to see outrages committed on the cultural commissions and embassies of the fine Italian nation. Sedate youselves, and remain calm, before you view

this.

The moral high ground?

We know that goats love climbing to the tops of things – and, occasionally, fellow ruminants, too.



But the goat may also have a claim to stand on the moral high ground. Goats, and sheep, make splendid parents. And although proverbial for lechery and unseemliness, it appears that, really, the old he-goat simply loves his mother. Perhaps a little too much.

Goat Curry

Petrines Gjestgiveri

Serves 4-5

Ingredients:
3 pounds / 1.5 kg goat, cut into 1-inch / 2.5-cm cubes
1 lime
1 large onion, sliced
6 cloves garlic, finely chopped (about 3 tablespoons / 45 ml)
2 teaspoons / 10 ml salt
1 teaspoon / 5 ml black pepper
1 teaspoon / 5 ml thyme leaves
¼ teaspoon / 1 ml finely chopped Scotch bonnet pepper
2 tablespoons / 25 ml canola or vegetable oil
1 teaspoon / 5 ml sugar
5 green onions, chopped (about 1 cup / 250 ml)
2 teaspoons / 10 ml curry powder
2 potatoes, peeled and cut into ½-inch / 1-cm cubes

Method:

First, secure your goat, and deal with appropriately. Squeeze the lime juice over the goat; let it sit for a couple of minutes and then rinse with cold water. Drain off excess water. Place the goat in a sealable container and add the onion, garlic, salt, black pepper, thyme, and Scotch bonnet pepper. Wearing rubber gloves, rub the spices into the goat with your hands. Marinate, covered and refrigerated, for 1 to 2 hours.

In a large pot over medium heat, heat the oil and sugar, stirring until the sugar is brown. Add the goat with marinade, green onions, and curry; stir thoroughly. Cover the pot, reduce the heat to low, and simmer the goat slowly in its own juices, stirring occasionally, until the goat is nearly tender, about 30 minutes. If the meat is tough, pour ¼ cup / 60 ml of water at a time down the sides of the pot, not directly onto the goat (or you will toughen the meat).

Add the potatoes and ¼ cup / 60 ml water; stir thoroughly. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes or until the potatoes are cooked but not too soft. Crush some of the potatoes to thicken the sauce, if desired. If there is not enough sauce, add ¼ cup / 60 ml water and simmer for another 5 to 10 minutes.

Serve with rice and a salad.

Tragedy!

Where would the BeeGees be without goats? Nowhere, apparently; and immortal Shakespeare’s oeuvre would be considerably reduced; all episodes of EastEnders would end happily; and much of Western theatre and literature would not exist. For it can be argued – and I do argue it, I argue it forcefully, I argue it with conviction, I argue it passionately – it can be argued (with justification) that the goat gave us an entire dramatic form.

You know of course that our word tragedy comes (from Late Middle English, through Old French and via Latin) from the Greek τραγωδία. But perhaps you have forgotten that this word means – yes! – song (or ode) of the he-goat. Etymologists appear baffled and somewhat skeptical: ‘the reason remains unexplained,’ confesses the hapless dictionary-entry writer, clearly unacquainted with either tragedy or goats. The Song of the Goat, then: not the plaintive and solitary yodellings of the least popular member of a team, but an entire dramatic form, arising from among the ancient Greeks in honour of the god Dionysos, an inveterate cavorter with goatish satyrs. Mention of divine and celestial goats takes us in entirely different directions, but we must restrain ourselves. The Dionysiac Festival (isn’t this interesting?) was where theatre was born; was the white-hot crucible in which was forged the dramatic forms of the western world; was the origin of all we now see before us on the flickering screens of TV and film.

There seems to be something enduringly serious about goat-inspired art. Perhaps we should not be surprised: goats are no sort of joke. And here we see them at the origins of the best of the most high-minded and profound of dramatic arts. So the next time you watch a weepie or read a satisfyingly tragic tale, thank the goat. Whether we need also be thankful for the BeeGees I leave to your own best judgement.

Readers' Goats

Has a goat (or related caprinae) butted its way unexpectedly into your life? Have you had an encounter, alarming or exhilarating, with a ruminant wild or domesticated? If so, we at the OVM would love to hear your stories and see your pictures. We will feature them here, at Readers’ Goats, intermittently and at whim, for all of us to enjoy. You can share your experiences – and we encourage you to do so – by emailing the Order: just visit the Order’s profile page from the links to the right and hit the email button. We’re eager to hear from you.

Today’s Reader’s Goat is in a category we love: goat-themed objets. How and in what ways are sheep-goats immortalised as material things? Avid reader Ewe spotted these ovi-caprid masks at a roadside flea-market (coincidence?) and sent us her pictures. “These masks,” writes Ewe, “intrigued me strangely. Sure, we all have tons of sheep and goat knick-knacks about the house, but this I could actually wear! I suppose the mask-makers must have been really in touch with their inner ruminant – or maybe just wanted desperately to be one.”

Two caprinae, side-by-side, in harmony.

Sheep close-up

Thanks, Ewe! Any more ovicaprids trouvée? Send them in!

Do androids dream of electric sheep?

Top ten films for, about and by goats.

That is all.

What tangled webs we weave

Caprinae appear to exert an extraordinary fascination on the imagination of genetic scientists. The lure of goaty DNA is too much to resist, it seems, and meddling in it is common. First to achieve international fame, of course, was the clone Dolly. Long since given over to the tender ministrations of the taxidermist, she stands now in mute, stuffed but proud immortality in a glass cage in the foyer of an Edinburgh museum, with a view of the koi pond. In our first post we alluded to the manipulations of goat mammery glands, whose altered emissions protect against nefarious chemical attack -- not the first instance of militarised goats. Our enthusiasm for this project is tempered only by a nagging sense of logistical practicality; surely some sort of “gas mask” would be easier and lighter to carry than a mature female goat strapped to your back probably in some sort of complex webbing which would enable swift teat-access?

Udder manipulation does not stop there. A story from last year reminds us of plans to develop the web-spinning goat, able to squirt strands of spider’s silk from their genetically enhanced glands. More progress, perhaps, and another example of the goat in the service of humanity.

Yet at times we are visited by a vague sense of unease. Is all this entirely wise? Given the tendency for goats to climb to the tops of trees, the addition of web-slinging abilities may be ill-thought through, creating a wholly unintentional sort of canopy-dwelling aerial über-goat whose motives and movements we could only guess at. Should these genetically-enhanced goats ever turn feral then we may have more on our hands than we bargained for. It is testimony indeed to the noble and selfless character of goats that this has not yet happened.