joy of people

[screechfox]

today, while on an Internet rabbit hole involving the editor of a Manchester alternative poetry magazine from 1970-1972 that we found in my grandma's books, i ended up on an archived copy of a California gay magazine from 1986. and there were many small delights or interesting (or sad!) things in this, but the one that has filled me with the most joy for humanity is this:

a horoscopes section with your standard signs, but also assigning those signs to animals as part of the "California zodiac".

"The ancient traditions of the zodiac are rooted in vivid animal images. The word "zodiac” means cycles of animals. The animals mentioned herein comprise the California Zodiac — the first major revision of the militaristic Roman Zodiac in 2500 years. By the year 1999, the animals will be fully reinstated with traditional dignity."

and I present to you the list of traditional zodiac signs with their assigned animals, in three categories:

• THE REASONABLE
• Scorpio, The Scorpion
• Cancer, The Crab
• Aries, The Sheep
• Taurus, The Ox
• Sagittarius, The Horse
• Pisces, The Shark

• THE "I GUESS YOU HAD TO ASSIGN THIS AN ANIMAL"
• Gemini, The Wolf
• Libra, The Leopard
• Virgo, The Pig (🤔)

• THE CONFUSING
• Capricorn, The Whale
• Aquarius, The Eagle
• Leo, The Snake

obviously, I'm sure there was more thought put into these than my surface-level judgements. but also, reading this page of the magazine filled me with a delight in humanity that I just can't explain. I think it was the conviction that these would be adopted by 1999, and just... Leo, The Snake. I love people, okay? people are weird and great and I love them.

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[adore]

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