Decidedly Grim

Today’s Beak-like Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

Undoubtedly the most vicious form of whipping was that practised in Russia using the knout or knoot. This fearsome weapon was introduced into the country by Ivan III (1462-1505), many different versions being used. One type consisted of a lash of rawhide, sixteen inches long with a metal ring at its end to which was secured a second lash nine inches long. That in turn also had a ring at its extremity, to which was attached a few inches of hard leather, ending in a beak-like hook.

The reformer John Howard was present at a knouting on August 10, 1781:

“The two criminals, a man and a woman, were conducted from prison by about fifteen hussars and ten soldiers… The woman was taken first, and after being roughly stripped to the waist, her hands and feet were bound with cords to a post made for the purpose, a man standing before the post to keep the cords tight. A servant attended the executioner, and both were stout, well-built men.

“The servant first marked his ground, and struck the woman five times on the back. Every stroke seemed to penetrate deep into her flesh, but his master, thinking him too gentle, gave all the remaining strokes himself, which were evidently more severe.

“The woman received twenty-five strokes, the man sixty… Both seemed just alive, and afterwards they were conducted back to prison in a little waggon (sic). I saw the woman in a very weak state later, but could not find the man any more.”

Culled from: The Book Of Execution

Facts

The Sylvia Likens Death House in Indianapolis was demolished today. Another piece of morbid history melts away…

Home Of Infamous 1965 Torture Death Demolished

Interestingly, my photo of the death house is my most popular image on Flickr:

News

Today’s Gaseous Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

Between October 26 and 31, 1948, a severe temperature inversion caused poisonous gases such as sulfuric acid and nitrogen dioxide to become trapped in the stagnant air of the Donora mill town in the Monongahela River Valley in Pennsylvania. Released from various steel works and a zinc plant, whose sulfuric emissions had wiped out most vegetation within a half-mile, 20 people were killed and thousands stricken with respiratory and heart problems.

Culled from: Huffington Post

I thought this was a good fact for Earth Day considering this was one of the events that helped launch the environmental movement which culminated in the Clean Air Act in 1970.

Facts

I’ve been in heaven this week housesitting for my sister in California because the Ovation channel has been featuring photography documentaries every night. On Wednesday night, I caught the best one yet: a documentary on one of my favorite photographers, the distinctly morbid Sally Mann, entitled What Remains: The Life And Work Of Sally Mann. The film follows her as she works on her fascinating series about death, What Remains. Sally is an amazing artist – working with huge glass negatives using the archaic wet colloidal photography process that was used by Matthew Brady during the Civil War – but the best thing about this documentary is realizing what a kindred morbid soul she really is. She’s the type of person who keeps the body of her favorite dog until it has decayed and then holds its mummified leg up and says in awe, “This leg ran all over this farm”. She’s also the type of person who gets permission to photograph corpses at the University of Tennessee “Body Farm” and walks up to a mummified corpse, leans over to get close, touches it and talks about how amazing mummified skin is. And never once complains about the stench or needs to wear a mask. She’s awesome.

And her photographs? Even more awesome. The wet colloidal process creates mysterious imagery that is perfectly suited for the subject matter. I must admit that I don’t actually have the book yet (it has been on my Amazon wish list for several years), but I am ordering it immediately. Salon has a few images from the book in this review of the documentary that give you an idea of their quality: What Remains.

I highly recommend you take the time to watch the DVD (which is available from Netflix). It’s a fascinating look at an intelligent artist with a touch of the macabre. (Oh, and her darkly evocative photographs of her children are awesome as well.)

What Remains: The Life And Work Of Sally Mann (DVD)

What Remains (Book)

Art

So how about that woman arrested for the murder of the 9-year-old girl in sleepy little Tracy, California? Allegedly, she not only murdered the girl, she also raped her with a foreign object. You’d think after doing something so horrendous (not to mention potentially embarrassing) you’d take a little more care to hide the evidence? Instead, the suitcase bobs up out of the rice field, like something out of Deliverance. (And yes, I am proud of myself that I was able to namecheck Deliverance two days in a row!) This will be an interesting case to follow…

Weeping Suspect Accused Of Girl’s Rape, Murder

News

I just finished watching a documentary on Shelby Lee Adams, a photographer who snaps stark and frightening portraits of poverty-stricken Appalachian hillbillies. In other words, the people from Deliverance. And these people, as depicted in the documentary and in the images, made my blood run cold. If I believed in Hell, my vision of Hell would be to have to live with them. I hope I don’t have nightmares, but the chance of avoiding their inbred faces in my darkest dreaming seems slim. Have a look for yourself!

Images by Shelby Lee Adams – People and Animals
Napier Family Photos by Shelby Lee Adams

Art

I am in the midst of a week-long visit with my family in Catatonia, and I’ve decided to do a photo project with the Holga to document my life here. I went to my old Elementary School yesterday to take some shots and it was a MOST disillusioning experience. About the only thing that remained from my youth were the fields, asphalt, and buildings. All of the things that mattered most to me – that I REALLY wanted to photograph – were gone. The rocketship shaped jungle jim? Gone. The Semi-Circle jungle jim? Gone. The swingset? Gone. The cement ditch that we used to jump over? Filled in. The huge oak tree that we used to play under? Gone. The playset where Debbie Dwight accidentally knocked the little girl down and broke her arm? Gone. The pillars that we used to sit on every lunch period in 6th grade? Gone. The tetherball court? Gone. Most of them, I’m sure, removed due to lawsuit fears. “That tree might fall down on a kid one day – we better chop it down… We can’t have jungle jims anymore, they are too dangerous, especially on asphalt… Some kid tripped and fell in that ditch – we better fill it in… Some kid might fall from those pillars – better remove them…” etc.

When I was a kid, we had high swingsets that were set in gravel. We used to be able to swing so high in the air that the chains jerked as we started to descend. Then, when we were at our highest point, we could launch ourselves and soar through the air, before landing in the gravel. Nowadays, the swingsets are much shorter, the maximum height much smaller, and the ground is soft rubber. Sure, kids these days won’t get as many skinned knees or broken arms, but I find it much more disturbing that they also won’t know what it’s like to fly, or triumph against the odds. We are breeding a generation of wusses thanks to the evil that is litigation… and something beautiful is being lost.

Walking through the school, I felt like I was viewing the wholesale destruction of my youth! I don’t have any photographs of that school to even commemorate what it once looked like, which is very distressing to me. Despite my disappointments, there was one nice moment when I strained to look through a dark window into the girls bathroom and saw that they still have the weird round sink in the middle of the room like in the good old days. At least one thing remained the same. Oh, and the floors in the school were still painted that strange gray color that I remembered. And there were still enough cedar trees in the front to give off that smell that to this day always takes me back to the school.

Maybe it’s true what they say – you can never go home again. When you’re away, the world moves on without you. I wonder what I’ll find at the Intermediate School and High School today?

Sundry

Chad VanGaalen is a Canadian singer/songwriter who animates his own videos. This is a particularly lovely example.

Sundry

Today’s Severe Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

Police in Allendale, South Carolina, are investigating whether a funeral home fit a 6-foot, 5-inch man into his coffin by severing his legs. The wife of James Hines reportedly said the funeral home told her that her husband’s coffin was long enough. A former Cave Funeral Services employee has alleged since James Hines’ death from skin cancer in 2004 that Hines was too tall for his coffin and that the funeral home took extreme measures to make him fit. Officials exhumed Hines’ body Tuesday, Allendale County Coroner Hayzen Black said, and a fair amount of “undesirable evidence” was found, although he could not comment further. The coroner’s office handed the case over to law enforcement officials for a criminal investigation. Ruth Hines, widow of the dead man, said that the allegations and exhumation of Hines’ body are difficult for her. “I’m just going through quite a bit,” she said. “It’s like starting all over again, and it’s left me with hurt and numbness. According to the measurements on the casket, and the funeral director, we asked him, ‘Was this suitable for his length?’ and he said, ‘Yes that will be perfect,’” Ruth Hines said.

Culled from: CNN

Okay, so who else hears that ever-so-slightly racist old children’s song “Crazy Old Man From China” in their head when they read this story? You remember it, right?

My mother she told me to put him to bed
Oh gee I don’ wanna
I put him to bed and he chopped off his head
That crazy old man from China

My mother she told me to bury him deep
Oh gee I don’ wanna
I buried him deep and he stuck up his feet
That crazy old man from China

My mother she told me to chop off his feet
Oh gee I don’ wanna
I chopped off his feet, they ran down the street
That crazy old man from China!

Facts