The funniest thing about GOL is that the harder you try to make things live, quicker you kill it off. How can 4 simple rules develop such poignant insights?!
Continuing with the here's mine: http://gkatsev.com/gameoflife.js/index.html
I wrote this a few months ago. It's fairly similar to the post's one but I have a few presets as well as the ability to share.
Also, as mentioned above about the MIDI I plan on making it into a step sequencer using the new js audio APIs but have not had a chance to do so yet.
http://twoguysarguing.wordpress.com/2010/11/04/html-5-game-o...
http://benjaminplee.github.com/HTLM5-GoL/
I was planning on adding interactions like yours but never got around to it. Nice work!