Vitamin C!

Vitamin C - Can
That's Vitamin C! It's also called L-asorbic acid. Vitamin C is essential for human life. Some animals, strangely, make their own vitamin C internally, most notably all bats and tarsiers and monkeys and apes. I'm glad that we do not make our own vitamin C internally because I enjoy having an excuse to eat lots of kiwis and grapefruits and tangerines.

Here is a picture of some citrus fruits:

They look delicious, don't they?

I am assured that vitamin C has biological significance. Here is a quote from a fairly reliable source: "SVCT2 is involved in vitamin C transport in almost every tissue, the notable exception being red blood cells which lose SVCT during maturation. Knockout animals for SVCT2 die shortly after birth, suggesting that SVCT2-mediated vitamin C transport is necessary for life." The complicated and unfamiliar language assures me that vitamin C is, indeed, biologically significant. While I do not understand the quote I provided, I am curious about some of its claims. I feel a certain pathos for red blood cells who lose their SVCT after they graduate from, presumably, adolescence. I guess life (with all its dependence on vitamin C) is tough for everyone. I am also curious about what a "knockout animal" is. I am also saddened to learn that they die quickly after they are born. God is cruel.

While vitamin C is essential for life, "Vitamin C" (please note the helpful quotation marks) is also a song by a German band called Can. Like the scientific language above, they are complicated and unfamiliar. When they were a band in West Germany (the democratic sovereign state on the right side of the Iron Curtain, which is a metaphor for the divide between communist states and democratic states), Can recorded a few strange albums with strange names like and Tago Mago and Monster Movie and Ege Bamyasi. The album from which "Vitamin C" is taken is Ege Bamyasi, which means "Aegean okra" in the Turkish language. Okra is also good. However, it is not a citrus fruit, so do not expect it to deliver any vitamin C (please note the lack of quotation marks) to you. I also like the song "Father Cannot Yell" by this band, but I am not writing about that song. I am writing about "Vitamin C."

The song "Vitamin C" is a very good song. I would say that it is the best song on the album. I make that claim because the song that should be the best song (the next song on the album, "Soup") is over 10 minutes long and only 5 of those minute are really good. I sometimes lose my patience with the last 5 minutes of "Soup." I do not lose my patience with "Vitamin C" because it is an important song. I think the song is a PSA (or public service announcement) for the importance of receiving vitamin C. The singer of Can reminds the listener of the song that he or she is losing his or her vitamin C. Since vitamin C is important for life, the singer's message about the importance of vitamin C is an important message.

Losing your vitamin C is a scary proposition. Think about this when you are thinking about not getting your vitamin C by eating a citrus fruit: vitamin C deficiency is the cause of a disease called scurvy. To illustrate the danger of scurvy, please look at the helpful picture below:


When you have scurvy you have loss of teeth, pale skin, and sunken eyes. Since you probably like to not lose your teeth or have your skin be pale or have your eyes sunken, then you would be wise to heed the warning of the lead singer of Can to get your vitamin C by eating citrus fruits.

On a historical note, many pirates had scurvy because they did not have access to the vitamin C-rich citrus fruits that we decadent Americans take for granted every morning at breakfast while we read USA Today and sip hot beverages like tea or coffee. Also, many sailors (who were people who ferried commercial goods over vast oceans) had scurvy too. If you will excuse the pun, they were in the same boat as pirates with regard to their vitamin C consumption. Sometimes, pirates wanted to steal the commercial goods that sailors were transporting. The pirate captain would order his ship to ride beside the commercial freighter while his men stormed aboard. The pirates would take the commercial goods because they could use those commercial goods or they could sell the commercial goods on the black market. Think about this fact: men with scurvy (pirates) often fought other men with scurvy (sailors). God is cruel.

I want to say one last thing about the song "Vitamin C." My favorite part of the song is the noises made at the end. At first it sounds like someone breathing with a deviated septum. But then you think it sounds like the moment right before a tea kettle begins its full whistle. Then you think it sounds like seagulls, which just backs up the scurvy/pirate theme I mentioned earlier. At the very end of the song, though, it is clear that it is some kind of digital sound, perhaps made by a keyboard or a computer. Keyboards/computers are remarkable like that. They make our lives sustainable, which is what vitamin C does.