a flair for the macabre

I just read this article, about an exhibit of mummified corpses on display in Monterey, Mexico, and my immediate reaction was "cool! I want to go!" There's something weird and creepy and totally awesome about really old, inadvertently-mummified dead people. But upon reading the article, I noticed this statement:

"The collection is believed to be the largest in the Western Hemisphere. And the 23 corpses and head in Monterrey are the largest group from the museum to ever hit the road."

I run across this sort of statement a lot- such and such is "believed to be the largest collection in the world," or whatnot. "The collection of medieval torture devices at the Tower of London is believed to be the largest in the world." That sort of thing. What gets me is the "believed to be" part. It conjurs up images of some deranged, psychotic serial killer disguised as an innocent rich person, who secretly collects medieval torture devices, or in this case, mummified corpses, and it is only a matter of time before his collection is discovered and the collection previously thought to be the largest is outshone by some creepy guy's fetish. Is that why they put that phrase in these articles? So that if someone comes out and says "I HAVE A BIGGER COLLECTION OF DEAD GUYS, DON'T SELL ME SHORT," they don't have to deal with it?

Am I the only one who thinks about these things?

Probably.

i'd like to buy the world an Obama tshirt

Have I mentioned before how much I love Mark Morford? Oh, I have? Well I am mentioning it again.

Here is the latest reason why.

GO OBAMA!

things that would never happen at AFI

In going through old emails, I found one from a certain crooked-toothed professor at Northwestern, containing a scanned version of his signature. It was meant for me to forge and turn in on some document or other for some class I wanted to get into- if I remember correctly, my senior year independent study. The whole thing was so simple and so... not scandelous. Needless to say, the sort of thing that does not happen at AFI.


Just thought I'd remark on the awesomeness of the days when a teacher would encourage you to forge his signature.

Mr. Brayton, I presume

A sampling of the fruits of my most recent 2 1/2 hour conversation with Tim:

(1) SAT-style analogy: "The Apple: Beverly Hills Chihuahua :: Xanadu: Elizabeth: The Golden Age"

(1) pact to both buy and read Twilight within the next week.

(1) general wondering of how the world would be different had Jane Austen written lesbian erotica.


If that's not a good way to spend 2 1/2 hours, I don't know what is.

trial of the century

I was 12 when the (original) OJ Simpson verdict came through. We were in 7th grade English class with Ms. Busby at SF Day, and we stopped everything to watch. There were three black kids in my class, and I'm pretty sure two of them were in the other section, because the main thing I remember about the verdict was Aaron Robinson, the one black kid in the room, cheering when OJ was acquitted. It was the first time it had occurred to me that there were people who actually thought, or at least hoped, that OJ was innocent, and the first time I had been forced to think about it in terms of race. The "race card," as they call it nowadays, hadn't even crossed my mind.

Strange, that. Today it would probably be the first thing to cross my mind. Ah, the innocence of youth.

Randomely: remember that police chase with the white Bronco? I remember it SO CLEARLY it's kind of bizarre. Why would that have such an impact on me as an 11 year old? But it did, and apparently it did for everyone else in my generation too, the same way that September 11th did, or the way JFK's assassination did for my parent's generation. A police chase after a murderer who used to be a football hero. What the hell? But there it is in my mind, clear as day: Daniel Koplowitz was over hanging out with Taylor, and all of us, my parents included, sat in the tv room watching the chase. It was a very slow chase, if I recall correctly.

Anyway. Just random tangential reflections.