This Is Awesome!
January 8th, 2009
Not morbid, but it makes me happy anyway.
Atheists Send A Message
Archive
Archive for January, 2009
Coffin Couches!
January 6th, 2009
The perfect addition to any morbid sitting room
Thanks to Patrick for the link.
The Break-Up
January 5th, 2009
I wanted to recommend you take the time to skim through the recently released NASA report detailing the last fatal moments of the space shuttle Columbia, which broke up during re-entry in 2003. There’s something quite fascinating about imagining what it was like for the astronauts during their final moments, and this report details what probably happened to them. Basically: 1) An alarm went off warning them of a problem; 2) The shuttle went increasingly out of control for about 40 seconds; 3) The shuttle depressurized as it began to break apart; 4) The astronauts all went unconscious; 5) The lack of upper body restraint in the cabin caused the astronauts’ upper bodies to flop about unprotected as the cabin spun violently; 6) They died from lethal trauma.
The entire fascinating (and huge) report can be read on the L.A. Times website (PDF file):
Columbia Crew Survival Investigation Report
Morbid Fact Du Jour For January 3, 2009
January 4th, 2009
Today’s Disfigured Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
Hang Mioku, now 48, had her first plastic surgery procedure when she was 28; hooked from the beginning she moved to Japan where she had further operations – mostly to her face. Following operation after operation, her face was eventually left enlarged and disfigured, but she would still look at herself in the mirror and think she was beautiful. Eventually the surgeons she visited refused to carry out any more work on her and one suggested that her obsession could be a sign of a psychological disorder. When she returned home to Korea the surgery meant Hang’s features had changed so much that her own parents didn’t recognise her. After realising that the girl with the grossly swollen face was indeed their daughter her horrified parents took her to a doctor. Once again the possibility that Hang had a mental disorder was raised and she started treatment. However, this treatment was too expensive for her to keep up and she soon fell back into old ways. Amazingly, she found a doctor who was willing to give her silicone injects and, what’s more, he then gave her a syringe and silicone of her own so she could self-inject. When her supply of silicone ran out Hang resorted to injecting cooking oil into her face. Her face became so grotesquely large that she was called “standing fan” by children in her neighbourhood – due to her large face and small body. As Hang’s notoriety spread she was featured on Korean TV. Viewers seeing the report took mercy on her and sent in enough donations to enable her to have surgery to reduce the size of her face. During the first procedure surgeons removed 60g of foreign substance from Hang’s face and 200g from her neck. After several other sessions her face was left greatly reduced but still scarred and disfigured. And it would seem that even Hang can now see the damage she has done; she now says that she would simply like her original face back.
Culled from: Telegraph.Co.Uk
Generously submitted by: Twisted Princess
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Be sure to check out the photos of the woman at the link above. The third photo in the slide show, showing Hang as a young attractive woman, is especially tragic.
Obsolete
January 2nd, 2009
Obsolete is an amazing antique shop in Venice, California that specializes only the most high quality, unusual, and arcane of trinkets. In addition to a wide variety of creepy mannequins and dolls, their website also features one of the greatest advertising characters ever created: The Akron Truss Boy!!! I can’t imagine how much he costs, but the price would, of course, be well worth it.
My Akron Truss Makes Me Happy!
There are too many exceptional trinkets here to describe them all, so you really should go and browse the store yourself:
Obsolete
Morbid Fact Du Jour For January 2, 2009
January 2nd, 2009
Today’s Traumatic Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
Women with vesicovaginal fistulas – a passageway from the bladder to the vagina that allows urine to leak through the vagina which is usually the result of traumatic labor – were, in the 19th century, social outcasts. No cure was available. In Montgomery, Alabama, Dr. J. Marion Sims (considered the father of American gynecology) treated three Alabamian slave women – Anarcha, Betsy, and Lucy – all of whom may have been suffering from fistula problems, to develop new techniques to repair this condition. From 1845 to 1849 he experimented on them, operating on one of them 30 times (it remains unclear if this was necessary due to stitching failure, or if Sims did it deliberately). Although anesthesia had recently become available it was rarely used as yet; whatever the reason, we know he did not use it on the slave women though he did provide opiates after the surgeries (probably more to stifle their moans than to ease their pain). After the extensive experiments and difficulties, Sims finally perfected his technique and repaired the fistulas. It was only after the success of the early experiments on the slaves that Sims attempted the procedure on Caucasian women with fistulas, this time with anesthesia.
Culled from: Wikipedia
Generously submitted by: Twisted Princess
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Sims is memorialized with a statue in Central Park (which some people want removed – though I think that covering up the mistakes of the past is always worse than discussing them). I think a far better solution than removing Sims’ statue would be to put up another statue in honor of Anarcha, Betsy, and Lucy, and their far greater contribution to medical science.
Image culled from EastHarlem.Com
Morbid Fact Du Jour For January 1, 2009
January 2nd, 2009
Today’s Shameful And Terrible Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
Elephants were used as executioners of choice in India for many centuries. Hindu and Muslim rulers executed tax evaders, rebels and enemy soldiers alike “under the feet of elephants.” Captain Alexander Hamilton, writing in 1727, described how the Mughal ruler Shah Jahan ordered an offending military commander to be carried “to the Elephant Garden, and there to be executed by an Elephant, which is reckoned to be a shameful and terrible Death.” Some monarchs also adopted this form of execution for their own entertainment. Another Mughal ruler, the emperor Jahangir, is said to have ordered a huge number of criminals to be crushed for his amusement. The French traveller François Bernier, who witnessed such executions, recorded his appallment at the pleasure that the emperor derived from this cruel punishment. Nor was crushing the only method used by the Mughals’ execution elephants; in the Mughal sultanate of Delhi, elephants were trained to slice prisoners to pieces “with pointed blades fitted to their tusks.”
Culled from: Wikipedia
Generously submitted by: Ben Z.
The Orphanage
January 2nd, 2009
There is nothing that I love better than a good ghost movie, but, sadly, a good ghost movie is the rarest of all crown jewels in the Horror film canon. Over the past decade there have been a few very good ghost films (What Lies Beneath, The Sixth Sense, Stir Of Echoes) and some very poor, overproduced pieces of crap (The Haunting, The House On Haunted Hill). However, there has only been one film that I would consider a masterpiece of the genre: The Others.
The Others is not only my favorite ghost movie, it’s also one of my favorite films of any genre. In the grand tradition of The Innocents, The Others contains all of the essentials of a good ghost film, and then some: a lonely, misty atmosphere; a huge, gothic estate; hauntings that are subtle instead of blaring (when will big budget horror movie directors learn that it’s what you DON’T see that is most frightening?); arcane 19th century morbid touches such as the “Book of the Dead” scrapbook of post-mortem photographs; and exceptional acting, especially by the creepy children. All this, and a devastating twist at the end as well. Sheer gothic perfection!
The other night I saw another film that almost rises to the same lofty heights: the Italian film The Orphanage (Il Orfanato). Like The Others, The Orphanage is set in a huge gothic estate – this time a former orphanage – and centers around a mother and child. There are lots of creepy urban exploration touches (hidden rooms and morbid secrets), freaky costumes, and another great plot twist at the end. Even better, it’s one of those films that can be interpreted as either a ghost story or a psychological study, depending on your perspective. A highly recommended masterpiece of the genre.
The Orphanage (Il Orfanato) (2007)
More film recommendations can be seen at The Library Eclectica.
