#15: Nicholas Roerich, Feral Children, & Biker Boys.

So it seems I post one out of every five posts, which makes a solid 20%. How Danny finds the time to write so much is still a mystery; perhaps he leads a secret double life.

The other day while sifting through the books I have in my old bedroom here at my parents place when I came across one about Nicholas Roerich. He is a Russian artist who spent much of his life traveling across Asia and painting colorful, expressive mountain scenes. He also wrote a bunch of books detailing his spiritual adventures. For those of you living out in NYC, there is an amazing small museum of his works uptown on West 107th Street. It's free (bonus!) and even has some music concerts and poetry readings on a weekly basis. I promise you won't be disappointed. The museum features quite a few of his works which were confiscated by the IRS when he failed to pay his taxes.

I think we've all heard stories of feral children, people who have been raised by animals in the wild without human contact who are suddenly discovered and then re-assimilated into human culture. Despite the tales, I was surprised to find that this seems to happen a lot more often than one might think. Case in point: this article from 2004 about a man in Fiji who was raised in a chicken coop or this bit about a Chilean boy found in a cave being cared for by dogs.

Most compelling of all, however, is this story about a Ukrainian girl who was brought up by a pack of dogs. The BBC produced a short documentary on her that includes footage of Oxsana after she was found and follows her through a few years of acculturation. In the beginning, she seems to have more in common with her canine friends than with the folks who found her. She jumps around on all fours, snarls, even drinks in the unmistakable fashion of her protectors. The video is incredibly riveting but a little jarring, so watch at your own discretion:



It's no L'Enfant Sauvage, but it is pretty amazing.

On a more fabulous note, here's something for the folks who sent us messages about the Le Sport video the other day. Swedish rainbow-club-ready indie-pop act Biker Boy recently released an EP called You Got Me Wrong that features four songs and four remixes of the title track, including one by kindred spirits Le Sport. You can download the song here or the remix here. And goodness, wouldn't you know there's a video, too?



Heart,
Nina