Underwater Cowtown

My last post, "Mr. Johnson, ho, ho, ho" discussed the word nickel and its etymology (a goblin name, originating as a diminutive for Nicholas). It also has right in the title "ho, ho, ho," an exclamation closely associated with Saint Nicholas. Thinking about that name, Nicholas, made me think of how a man I went to church with in Ohio decades ago often told the story of how he had met a man named Nicholas Picholas and what a funny name that was. On a whim, I googled that name and got this:

That's right, I searched for a random name I had heard in Ohio and found someone who not only lives in Buffalo, New York, but actually uses @nickinbuffalo as his Instagram handle. The phrase "nick in" is a direct link to the Lassie story in Lady Luck:

I briefly checked Nicholas Picholas's Instagram but found nothing of interest except this photo, relevant to the blue-green ambiguity:

The sync fairies certainly seem to be trying to draw my attention to Buffalo. In Chinese, a buffalo is called 水牛, literally "water cow," and the city in New York is called 水牛城, meaning "Water Cow City." This made me think of They Might Be Giants' very first song:

Here are the lyrics:

[Chorus]

I'm going down to Cowtown, the cow's a friend to me

Lives beneath the ocean, that's where I will be

Beneath the waves, the waves, and that's where I will be

I'm gonna see the cow beneath the sea

[Verse 1]

The yellow Roosevelt Avenue leaf overturned

The ardor of arboreality is an adventure we have spurned

We've spurned, a new leaf overturned

Is a new leaf overturned

[Verse 2]

We yearn to swim for home, but our only home is bone

How sleepless is the egg knowing that which throws the stone

Foresees the bone, the bone?

Our only home is bone, our only home is bone

Cowtown is located "beneath the ocean," so that's a pretty direct link to Water Cow City, a.k.a. Buffalo, New York. No one is really sure what the song is supposed to mean, but one theory is that it's about Mu ("moo"), a mythical lost continent which was at first identified with Atlantis (though the current New Age consensus distinguishes the two). Mr. Johnson, who used to live in Buffalo, has been identified with Peter, and Bill's theory is that Peter is none other than Ar-Pharazôn, the last king of Númenor (i.e. Atlantis, which is Mu, which is Cowtown, which is Buffalo) before it sank "beneath the waves, the waves."

The first verse of "Cowtown" begins with a mashup of "The Yellow Rose of Texas," Roosevelt Avenue, and "turn over a new leaf." Read at face value, though, it's referring to some kind of "yellow leaf" -- i.e., the "leaves of gold" that have so often appeared on this blog. I've generally interpreted these "leaves" as pages of gold (like the Gold Plates), and the "turn over a new leaf" reference reinforces this reading.