Get Your Goat

Astrologically, I'm a Capricorn, born in this gelid month of January. (I share a birthday with the late Richard Nixon and Joan Baez--how's that for a combination?) That means my "sign" is the goat, which can be a symbol of evil (Satan is often depicted as a goat or as having goat-like features) or martyrdom (the "scapegoat").

Given those alternatives, I prefer to think of goats as symbols for beer. According to Cult of the Goat: Bock Beer Labels and a Homonym Gone Awry, the name of the German strong ale Bockbier, or "Bock" as it is more commonly known, is the same as the German word for billy goat. Thus American beers produced by German immigrants in the early 20th century often featured a goat on their labels.

The huge collection of these graphically sophisticated old beer labels at No Relevance.com -- Really Cool Visual Junk made me feel a lot better about my . . . er . . . goatdom. There's a lot of other fine "junk" there, too.

"Would you, could you, with a goat? Would you, could you, on a boat?"