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Photographing the dead

Victorian photo of a dead woman gracefully reclining on a couch.
Postmortem photo of a young woman

Yesterday I talked about a couple celebrating their wedding in a funeral home. Today we turn to actually celebrating the dead in a way that seems to be lost.

You may think that photographing everything is a new phenomenon. Though they didn’t have social media, the Victorians captured many images of life, and death. The woman seen in this picture is dead. It was common practice to photograph the dead in elegant remembrances. These photos give the appearance of a loved one who has simply been caught napping.

Victorian postmortem photo of a woman in a black dress laying with her eyes opened
This postmortem photo has the woman’s eyes open.

In some cases they eyes were opened for the photograph, giving a weird effect. They stare out, strangely.

Victorian color photo of a young black boy standing behind his dead brother who lays on a couch
A brother looks over his dead sibling

It was common to have people pose in the photographs, a tableau of living and dead together. Some of these pictures are incredibly poignant, such as the brother looking over his sibling, apparently napping on the couch.

Victorian postmortem photo of a standing fireman with a drawin showing the rig to pose him
This rig allows the deceased to be posed in a standing position.
JohnOconnor-postmortem
A strange, standing photo of a man two years after his death

Of course, the dead did not simply recline. Elaborate rigs were designed to pose a corpse standing. Some of the photos resulting from this technology are pretty bizarre, as the dead stand proudly, or lean jauntily, sometimes surrounded by friends and family. The photo of John O’Connor shows him standing with a couple of gentlemen two years after his death! The card is from the Livingstons Undertakers. Is this a sample of their embalming work?

There are a few photographs that seem to show the dead hanging around for some time between their death and their burial. It’s possible that, since news and people traveled more slowly in this age that they kept the embalmed bodies on view for much longer before they were buried.

Victorian postmortem photo of a teenage girl sitting with handwritten notes around
Notes around this photo indicate the emotion associated with the death and the reluctance to let go

These images are weird and heartbreaking. The emotion is clear in the faces of loved ones included. It’s also interesting the number of children that appear. “Go over there, Timmy, and hold your sister’s cold, dead hand for the man.”

Of course, our modern society has become quite removed from the process of death. Perhaps they were all simply much closer to it, so it wasn’t unusual. I think these are all a good defense if you decide to take a selfie with the deceased at the next funeral.

I’ll close out with a few more striking pictures. I find them all fascinating. Many more can be easily found on the Internet.

A sweet-looking young girl lies as though napping.
A sweet-looking young girl lies as though napping.
A dead girl stares wildly as she poses with her family. Note the base of the stand at her feet.

 

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Beginning at the end

Wedding photo of Asian couple in a coffin.
Couple celebrate their wedding in the family funeral home.

We look forward to the day when an especially weird couple chooses to tie the knot at the Museum of the Weird. (We can totally make that happen with an in-house officiant!)

However, until that happy day, we always like to look at the bizarre ways that people celebrate their unions. Earlier this month, a couple in Ohio had their wedding in her family funeral home. According to this article in The Huffington Post, Chelsea and Barry Lesnick exchanged vows at the Brunner Sanden Deitrick Funeral Home & Cremation Center which has been run by her family for years.

“We really didn’t think of it as weird, for our mindset, because we deal with death all the time. It’s the family business,” Chelsea told Huffington. “But talking to other people about it, like friends and Barry’s family, they were a little weirded out by the idea. They were a little skeptical, thinking, ‘How is this going to work? Are there going to be dead bodies everywhere?'”

Having made the acquaintance of a lovely Austin funeral director, I have seen her approach funerals as a celebration of life. That would make it a very fitting place for a wedding.

Of course, there are those who take a darker view. An Austin cake maker, Natalie Sideserf, created a most unusual cake for her marriage to husband, David. Being horror fans, they celebrated with cakes depicting their own severed heads. See this video.

 

https://youtu.be/bCoSS1YgDqo

Isn’t it wonderful when weird people find each other? Weird weddings are proof that a couple belongs together, with a celebration as unique as they are. We raise a toast to all of you lucky couples. Of course, if you are looking for a perfect way to start your weird life together, we always have some room to celebrate amongst the mummies and shrunken heads.

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Open wide

What in the world is going on here?

B&W Photo of a woman with a strange photographic aparatus aimed into her mouth.Is this woman the subject of a bizarre experiment? Is this a sort of torture? Is this man using a robot to extract something from her throat?

This is actually an image from a Bell Laboratories ad from Life magazine in 1947. This technician is using an elaborate apparatus to film this woman’s vocal chords. This does not look comfortable! It reminds me of the scene from Ghostbusters when Venkman hooked people up to electric shock equipment to test ESP. Haven’t seen it? It’s worth a look. Even if you have seen it, it’s worth seeing again.

Will people in the future look back at our sophisticated scientific apparatus and laugh at how crude and barbaric it is? I can’t even begin to imagine. Considering how much that picture makes me cringe, however, I’m guessing that they will.

So, what kind of images did they get? Here is an example of footage taken by Bell Labs.

Amazing!

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Tickets please

Funny ghost poster.
Poster in the London Underground takes a no-nonsense view of ghosts. Screen readers refer to this text.

I admit, I’m fond of the British. They generally have an admirable calm and dignity that is worth imitating. Submitted for your perusal is this poster, found in a London Underground, addressing the presence of spirits. It’s obviously a joke—and a good one—but reports of ghosts in the tube system are commonplace.

This Daily Star article describes encounters with “a girl with ‘coal-black pits for eye sockets’” that first emerged in the 1980s, and is still making appearances. Other regular encounters include the mad ghost of Sarah Whitehead, also known as the Black Nun, who haunts the Bank Station.

Of course, London is not the only place with haunted trains. According to this Silicon India News article there are ghosts spotted in stations all over the world. Here are a few doozies:

  • Caobao Road Subway Station in Shanghai, China, has frequent break downs that seem to get better once the trains are free of the station. One story suggests that a man was dragged onto the tracks by a spirit!
  • Panteones Metro Station in Mexico City—the name literally means “Graveyards”— was built near two old cemeteries.  Workers hear mysterious knocks on the walls and have seen indistinct, shadowy shapes moving around. Screams are sometimes heard along the tracks.
  • Guards at Waterfront Station in Canada have seen a number of bizarre reflections of past passengers. One saw a 1920’s flapper complete with music from the era that vanished as approached.
  • Connolly Station in Ireland was badly damaged during a 1941 bombing attack. A soldier in grey has been seen roaming the platform and a guard watching the security camera saw two figures in military gear who disappeared when he investigated.

Why do ghosts return to these subways? Do they think of them as special places? They are certainly places where people have spent a lot of time. When I die I hope I don’t find myself trapped in someplace that was part of my day-to-day, mundane world. Imagine spending the afterlife sitting at that red light, or trapped behind a keyboard?

We’re interested in your weird travel encounters. We’ll share the interesting ones here.

 

 

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Armadillo armor works

You may have heard reports of the Texas man injured by a ricochet while shooting an armadillo. Some outlets reported that the bullet actually ricocheted off of the hard armor of the creature, but this Huffington Post article denies that claim. They report that Chief Deputy Roy Barker, with the Cass County Sheriff’s department, was by the man that the bullet from his .38 caliber pistol ricocheted off a rock and struck him in the jaw, grazing him. The injuries were not life threatening.

However, there is another report of armadillo payback from April of this year.

https://youtu.be/4mSvg0QtKGo

You would not imagine that the shell of such a little creature could protect against a bullet, but, apparently, this sort of thing happens from time to time. While their armor may do them good in some of these cases any drive down a Texas highway will show that it’s not invulnerable.

Why did the chicken cross the road? To show the armadillo it could be done.

Keep weird, everyone.

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Music of the trees

People talk about harmony in nature. Artist and engineer, Bartholomaus Traubeck, took this quite literally with his unusual creation that turns the rings on a tree into music.

The device looks very much like a vinyl DJ station. A slice of tree is put on a turntable and an arm with a sensor tracks the rings, converting them to piano notes. The music is unlike anything that you’ve ever heard. Here is a video of one tree’s song that he calls “Years.” It begins at the center of the tree, the youngest part, and then works its way out to the edges. It’s fascinating to hear everything become more complex as the tree ages.

The scientific study of tree rings is called Dendrochronology. There is currently no word for someone who creates music from them. Is he a composer? The music is in the trees; he is using technology to find and interpret it. Perhaps some things don’t need a classification. That’s why they’re wonderfully weird.

Traubeck provides more detail about his motivations and methods in this Huffington Post interview. You can hear more tree music and purchase albums through his web site.

Do you know of more music from nature? Tell us about it!

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Artist creates bizarre crocheted skeletal remains

We have some bizarre art for sale at the Lucky Lizard. But we also have to tip our hats to people who create amazingly bizarre works. Caitlin T. McCormack is one such artist. Using string, Caitlin creates intricate animal skeletons that will cause a double-take. Here is a video with some startling examples. (Warning: the funky music might need to be turned down in your environment.)

https://youtu.be/4MVSNMeacI4

You can see a fuller portfolio on her web site. For those who appreciate the intricate architecture of the skeleton, they are beautiful to behold. Unfortunately, as of this writing, she appears to be sold out of everything, or we might find a way to include one in the Museum.

We are in, awe, however. It is all amazingly done and we are grateful to have the chance to see them virtually.

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Buried alive in Brazil

You may have seen a recent story repeated from dailybuzz.com with titles like “Woman Buried Alive, Funeral Goers Hear Screams From The Grave.” Snopes declares this story to be false, and is is honestly unlikely that with the embalming processes commonly used in the United States that someone would make to the grave alive. However, it is not unheard of, even in our modern age, for someone presumed dead to be discovered alive in the nick of time. For example, this case in Mississippi where a man was discovered to be breathing on the embalming table!

We covered a story in 2011where a South African man was nearly buried alive. In that case the man was discovered in time. Here, there is startling video from 2013 where a Brazilian man was discovered trying to crawl from his own grave!

Should you be worried about being buried alive? Probably not. In general, modern medical professionals do a pretty good job of detecting life, or lack thereof. Of course, if you want to experience the idea of being buried alive, there is a device for haunted attractions that will give you that experience. Your author has tried this out at a HauntCon convention several years ago. You lay inside a coffin and the lid is closed. You feel it picked up, carried to your grave as people outside the coffin comment. Finally, feel yourself lowered into the grave and feel dirt tossed on you as the world becomes more and more distant. It’s probably not for everyone.

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Loch Ness monster hunter not giving up

After nearly a quarter of a century, Steve Feltham is still on the hunt for Nessie, the mysterious creature reported to inhabit Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands. A July 16 article in The Times newspaper claimed that Feltham was giving up the search because he had concluded that Nessie is a catfish. (This New York Post version of the story doesn’t require a subscription.)

Silurus glanis 02
Steve Feltham suggests that the Loch Ness Monster may be a misidentified Wels Catfish, which can grow to 13 ft.
(Photo by Dieter Florian tauchshop-florian.de [CC BY-SA 3.0])
However, the rumors of the end of his quest are exaggerated. When Fletham spoke to Reuters he said “It’s still a massive world-class mystery. It’s been a life-long passion for me and I’m dedicated to being here and being fully involved in this whole hunt. I couldn’t be more content doing anything else.”

When asked about his catfish theory Feltham replied “At the moment, a Wels catfish ticks more of the boxes than any of the other contenders for the explanation. I would like it to be something new and undiscovered rather than something a little bit mundane. People do report four- or five-feet long necks sticking up out of Loch Ness. That’s not going to be a Wels catfish.”

Steve Feltham walked away from his home, his job and his girlfriend in 1991 to take up residence in a little trailer next to Loch Ness. He keeps watch with a set of powerful binoculars and sells little Nessie sculptures to tourists. What caused him to take such a huge leap in his life? This video from his Nessie Hunter web site tells the story best.

Feltham is the best kind of monster hunter. His dedication and even-headedness on this search is admirable and gives us hope that he will find the truth. Watch how he handles this news reporter.

We’ve talked about Feltham before in these articles from June and July of 2011.

Glad to have you out there, Steve Feltham. Best of luck on your quest!

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Vampire flowers had willing donor

rose-224862_1280In 1963 a man named Ralph Farrar was diagnosed with a disease called Hemochromatosis. The result was that his blood had too much iron. The treatment at the time—which is still recommended today—is removal of blood from the body on a regular basis. Once a week, Farrar would go to the doctor where they would remove a pint of his blood.

Blood taken for this purpose cannot be used as part of a blood bank, so he found another use. Once a week he would pour a bottle on his roses as an iron-rich fertilizer. Ralph lived in San Antonio, Texas, but his story was picked up by the Associated Press (AP). Here is an archive of the original article as it appeared in the Tuscaloosa News on June 29, 1963.

Of course, the most famous plant that demanded blood was Audrey II, the plant from Little Shop of Horrors, which started as a 1960 Roger Corman film, then became a popular Broadway musical, finally returning to film in 1986, directed by Frank Oz.