It's hard to read the news these days without asking yourself, how did we get here?

Fiasco is a history podcast for the co-creators of Slow Burn.

In our first season, Bush v. Gore, we examine an unmistakable turning point in American politics,

the 2000 election, which resulted in a high-stakes stalemate, ended with one of the most controversial rulings in Supreme Court history.

So if you're trying to make sense at the present moment, check out Fiasco, Bush v. Gore.

Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of IHeart Radio.

Thank you. Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of IHeart Radio. Hi, my name is Robert Lamb, and this is The Artifact, a short form series from Stuff to Blow

Your Mind focusing on particular objects, ideas, and moments in time.

On a recent visit to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I came across one of the weirder pieces of art I think you could hope to find in such a place.

Alongside various historic pieces from around the world, here's something that seems to stand

outside of any given artistic tradition,

or so it seemed to me. It looks like the creature from John Carpenter's The Thing was in the

process of turning into an ox when the flamethrowers hit it. The result, a googly-eyed head of an

ox atop a wooden pillar of twisting hooves and tissue.

Granted, I was pretty jet-lagged when I first took this side in, literally struggling to stay awake on my feet, but this absurdity really captured my attention and woke me up a little bit.

The museum's website lists it as head of an ox, while the signage in the museum calls it

head of an ox on a tree trunk.

Indeed, this bizarre sculpture from the second half of the 17th century consists of an ox head

carved from marble atop a tree trunk with added wooden hooves.

If all of this was not enough, an oval cavity in the top of the ox head contains a wrinkled stone that for all the world

looks like a fossilized or petrified brain. So what is this brain all about? Well, for a while,

...