Well, another year has passed, and I once again sucked at being a Comtesse. What pulled me away from my morbid duties this year? Oh, you know, the usual: massive depression coupled with work overload. I think the two actually go hand in hand…
But I am going to make a pledge to you all right here and right now – and you can hold me to this and stick me in a brazen bull if I don’t keep my word: I will update this site every day that I have access to a computer. And I will state explicitly when I am going to be away from computer access in advance. I will NOT let you down in 2011!!! It’s the 15th anniversary of the Morbid Fact Du Jour and I am determined to revitalize it. I hope to become the site that you tell all your friends about again.
And to start things off, I thought I’d share a lovely little morbid ditty by Nick Lowe. Marie Prevost was a silent film star who became a lonely alcoholic and died of heart disease in 1937 at the age of 38. Her pet dachshund had been nibbling at her body for a couple days before she was found.
Mirth, Sundry
Why oh why do we not have playgrounds like these Eastern European/Chinese beauties here in the States? Why must life be so dreary? Sigh…
Nightmare Playgrounds
Thanks to Sarah for the link.
Sundry
Trichotillomania is the compulsive eating of hair. I suffer from a lot of compulsive behaviors, but I must admit that this isn’t one of them. Thank goodness, because you can see what the result of this particular affliction is here:
The Stomach Of A Trichotillomaniac
Thanks to Elizabeth for the link.
Sundry
So I just stumbled across a handgun lying in the grass. I was super-excited for a second!!! I thought, “Wow!!! A MURDER WEAPON!!!!” and I was all ready to call 911. Then I examined it closer and found that it was a BB gun… and a broken one, at that. Figures. Will nothing exciting EVER happen in my life? I took it home – it could come in handy if I ever want to commit suicide-by-cop.
Sundry
Carson pointed out to me that the American Experience episode on the father of the Lobotomy, Dr. Walter Freeman, is available to watch online at the PBS website. I just watched it and it’s a fascinating, horrifying, documentary that explores the history of psychiatric care, and Freeman’s tragic legacy.
The Lobotomist
Sundry
Thanks to Joseph sending me a link to a Mark Morford column, I just learned about the creepy Dyatlov Pass Incident. Ever heard of it? Here’s a summary: In February, 1959 nine experienced Russian mountaineers set off on a cross-country skiing expedition in the Ural mountains. When they failed to arrive to their destination, a search expedition was sent out and discovered their camp, abandoned. They had apparently built a camp for the night in an unplanned location due to inclement weather. Their tent had been cut open from the inside and their clothing and equipment was left behind.
The abandoned campsite. The tent had been cut open from the inside.
Eventually, they found two bodies, barefoot and in their underwear, in a forested area 1.5 kilometers downhill from the camp. There was evidence that the men had tried to build a fire and had attempted to climb a tree to locate the campsite. Three more bodies were found near the forest heading towards the camp. Although one of these bodies had a fractured skull, the official cause of death for all five was determined to be hypothermia.
It took two more months before the other four bodies were discovered, buried under deep snow in a ravine. All four bodies had signs of traumatic injury: one had a crushed skull, two had broken ribs, and the third was missing her tongue. There were reports of high radioactivity found on the bodies, and even reports of apparent blindness in some of the victims.
So, the legend began: what caused these nine experienced mountaineers to hastily leave their tent in the middle of the night and run out into the snow in -25 F cold in their underwear? Why did they cut open the tent rather than opening the ties? What caused the injuries? You can imagine where people’s imagination went… to a world of UFOs, Yeti, and other unexplained phenomenon.
Yet, Brian Dunning of Skeptoid put together a perfectly feasible explanation that doesn’t require anything supernatural. As usual. I tend to think his explanation is the closest to the truth (because let’s face it – our world is too boring for UFOs or abominable snowmen), but nobody really knows why those nine people died on that strange night in 1959. What’s your theory?
Read more about the incident here:
Fortean Times: The Dyatlov Pass Incident
St. Petersburg Times: Mysterious Deaths of 9 Skiers Still Unresolved
Pass Djatlova (in Russian)
Description and Analysis of the Dyatlov Pass Incident
Sundry
These girls fascinate me… I can’t help but think about inappropriate things like – does only one girl experience orgasms? And how bitter would I be if I was the one that didn’t?
Thanks to Elizabeth for the link.
Ghastly!, Sundry
Such a sweet video. Thanks to David K. for sending this one my way.
Sundry
Here’s something you can do with those disembodied baby doll parts you have lying around your pad.
Babydoll Coat Rack
Thanks to Faith for the link.
Sundry
Here’s a great word that has sadly fallen into disuse:
Weird Words: Patibulary
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Of or relating to a gallows or hanging.
This turned up in a book of curious and interesting words, whose author took its meaning from Winter’s Tale, a futuristic work of magical realism of 1983 by Mark Helprin. Mr Helprin defined it as meaning “delicate in motion, graceful and muffled as in the quiet sound made by ballet slippers. Only to be used in winter and at night.” The words-book author clearly didn’t check in the Oxford English Dictionary, where he would have found far less pleasant associations.
The word is from Latin “patibulum”, originally a fork-shaped yoke that was put on the necks of criminals or a fork-shaped gibbet in the shape of a vertical letter Y. It could also mean the horizontal bar of the crucifixion cross, or a forked prop to support vines.
Despite the solemn and religious associations its etymology brings to mind, the Oxford English Dictionary says “patibulary” has mainly been used humorously in English. That’s based on citations such as this, from the Sporting Magazine in 1801: “A certain Corn-Buyer, which had undergone the discipline of a patibulary suspension on a gallows.” But others were deathly serious: in The French Revolution (1837) Thomas Carlyle wrote of the gibbet as “the grim Patibulary Fork ‘forty feet high’”.
The word is now extremely rare. There’s one appearance in a work by Samuel Beckett (“the patibulary melancholy of the lemon of lemons”) and an occasional historical reference, such as this in a book by Edward Payson Evans about the one-time habit of executing animals:
“Hangmen often indulged in capricious and supererogatory cruelty in the exercise of their patibulary functions.”
http://www.worldwidewords.org
Thanks to Liz D-M for bringing this to my attention.
Sundry