Ghost Adventures

I'll admit that I love shows about the paranormal, even if they aren't realistic at all. Of all the "ghost hunting" programs I've watched, Ghost Adventures is the most intriguing. It's on the Travel Channel Friday nights, and I try to tune in whenever I can. The Ghost Adventures team goes all over the world to allegedly haunted locations and spends a night trying to make contact with the spirits there. They actually get some pretty good evidence in nearly every episode. In some, they've disproved claims that a location is haunted. In others, they've found that the hauntings are real. I love the way the show is edited. It just sets an eerie mood. Beyond that, the EVPs the team catch are my favorite part. Check out this video clip of Ghost Adventures visiting the Villisca Ax Murder House.

Post-Mortem Photography

It was the Victorian era - 1839, to be specific. A French man named Louis Daguerre had just invented the daguerreotype, which was the first major photography process. People all over the world could now have actual images of their loved ones, rather than expensive portraits done by artists. Hiring a photographer, however, was still not cheap. Most sessions were requested by well-to-do families. The others were reserved for the dead.

Allow me to explain: in this era, very few people lived to an old age. Life expectancy was short, and mortality rates were high. Most deaths were natural, that is a combination of disease and poor medical care. One could feel under the weather in the morning and be dead by the fall of night. If you scour postmortems, you will find that they are more often than not images of children. This is not necessarily because more children than adults died in this time period. When a child died (and often it lost more than one within a relatively short time), the family was devastated. The parents would find the money to have a picture made of their son or daughter, not as a reminder of death, but because they likely had no other pictures. If the death was slow and expected, an appointment could be made ahead of time. Some "postmortems" are actually of the dying, not of the dead. In cases where a photographer showed up immediately after the death, the deceased tends to look somewhat as s/he did in life. Unfortunately, this was not the norm. It could take weeks for a photographer to show up, and by then, the body's decomposition process would have started.

There are tell-tale signs to watch for when determining whether a photograph is post-mortem or not. In early photography, a person had to remain perfectly still for extensive lengths so that the picture could be taken. In photographs of the living, there are almost always "blurs" near the hands or the head, where the person moved slightly during the process. Post-mortems will have none, unless they are taken with the living. If the eyes are open, they will look glassy and distant, as if there is no soul behind them. They may not be open entirely, but there will be no blurring as a result of blinking. Rigidity is also something to watch for. If the body is bizarrely arranged or seems stiff (especially in the fingers), this is probably because the person is dead and rigor mortis has set in. Keep in mind that people were often propped or stood up. There are some photographs that show the dead being held by stands and positioned to look alive. If you can see a stand, pillows, or someone holding up the body, the person is likely deceased. Once decomposition has begun to set in, the eyes will sink into the face. Other facial features may do the same, but it is most noticeable with the eyes. The fingernails and lips will turn black, in time. This seems to occur most often in pictures of babies - possibly because of their smaller size. If the skin looks discolored, it may be a sign of death when accompanied by other features.


























And now for the best part -- some of my favorites. There are two sites that I scour frequently. The first, and what I consider to be the Internet's best collection, can be found here:
http://www.antiquephotoalbum.nl/pmgalleries/index.php You have to register, but there is no spam involved, and the pictures are well worth it. I highly recommend it.
The second, which hasn't been updated recently, but has pages upon pages of pictures is:
http://www.paulfrecker.com/collections.cfm?pagetype=library&typeID=1
I'm also including the link to a Flickr group that I used to visit often before I found my other two websites. The last time I checked, it had moved on to modern post-mortems, which I don't care much for. But I liked some of the older pictures, so here it is:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/postmortem/pool/

Gloomy Sunday

I first heard this song a couple of years ago and fell in love with it immediately. I recall reading about it on Snopes and being intrigued by the story behind the song. For those who don't know, Gloomy Sunday is the English name given to a song called Szomorú Vasárnap. The music was written in the 1930s by Rezső Seress. The words were added later by László Jávor. The song is said to have been related to multiple suicides in Hungary - numerous people reportedly played the music while they completed the act or left allusions to it in their suicide notes. These may simply be urban legends, but controversy sells. Gloomy Sunday has been banned, translated, recorded, and even turned into a film. By the way, I highly recommend the movie. I happen to be quite the critic, especially when it comes to movies involving suicides (as that is a sensitive issue for me), and I thought it brilliant. There are plenty of websites detailing the song's history, so I won't bother typing it all here. I will add links at the bottom of the post for anyone who wants more information and doesn't know how to find these sites.

You will find lyrics below. I have included the original Hungarian first, then what I presume to be a literal translation. Next is the English translation. I also rewrote these lyrics into French, and I will include those last. Please note that the French lyrics are mine. I can't account for accuracy, as I am not a native speaker. Just don't take them without permission.

Original Hungarian:
Szomorú vasárnap száz fehér virággal
Vártalak kedvesem templomi imával
Álmokat kergető vasárnap délelőtt
Bánatom hintaja nélküled visszajött
Azóta szomorú mindig a vasárnap
Könny csak az italom kenyerem a bánat...
Szomorú vasárnap
Utolsó vasárnap kedvesem gyere el
Pap is lesz, koporsó, ravatal, gyászlepel
Akkor is virág vár, virág és - koporsó
Virágos fák alatt utam az utolsó
Nyitva lesz szemem hogy még egyszer lássalak
Ne félj a szememtől holtan is áldalak...
Utolsó vasárnap

Literal English:
Gloomy Sunday with a hundred white flowers
I was waiting for you my dearest with a prayer
A Sunday morning, chasing after my dreams
The carriage of my sorrow returned to me without you
It is since then that my Sundays have been forever sad
Tears my only drink, the sorrow my bread...
Gloomy Sunday
This last Sunday, my darling please come to me
There'll be a priest, a coffin, a catafalque and a winding-sheet
There'll be flowers for you, flowers and a coffin
Under the blossoming trees it will be my last journey
My eyes will be open, so that I could see you for a last time
Don't be afraid of my eyes, I'm blessing you even in my death...
The last Sunday

commonly-used English:
Sunday is gloomy. My hours are slumberless.
Dearest, the shadows I live with are numberless.
Little white flowers will never awaken you,
not where the black coach of sorrow has taken you.
Angels have no thoughts of ever returning you.
Would they be angry if I thought of joining you?
Gloomy Sunday
Gloomy Sunday, with shadows I spend it all.
My heart and I have decided to end it all.
Soon there'll be candles and prayers that are sad, I know.
Let them not weep. Let them know that I'm glad to go.
Death is no dream, and in death I'm caressing you.
With the last breath of my soul, I'll be blessing you.
Gloomy Sunday

French:
Dimanche est sombre. Mes heures sont sans sommeils.
Cheri, innombrables sont les ombres qui m'entourraient.
Fleurs, petites et blanches, ne vous reveilleront jamais -
pas où le corbillard affrigé à vous porté.
Les anges n'ont de pensée de vous ramener.
Si je déciderai à vous joindre, seriont-ils fachés?
Sombre dimanche
Sombre dimanche, avec des ombres je passe le temps.
Mon cœur et moi avons decidés à tous mettre le fins.
Il y auraient des bougies et prières tristes, je sais.
Qu'ils ne pleurent pas. Qu'ils sachent qu'heuresement, je partirai.
La morte n'est pas de rêves, parce qu'en morte je vous caresserai.
Avec le dernier soupir de mon âme, je vous bénirai.
Sombre dimanche

Most English versions of the song now include an additional verse that was not part of the original. It explains that the singer was simply dreaming of the horrible depression he would feel if his lover were to die. By most accounts, it was added in because the song was "too morbid," otherwise. I don't care for this verse at all. It just doesn't go with the rest of the song, and it takes away from its meaning. Therefore, I have chosen to omit it from the lyrics on this blog. I like the song much better in its original translation, but then again... maybe I'm morbid.

Links:
http://www.phespirit.info/gloomysunday/
http://www.phespirit.info/gloomysunday/article_01.htm
http://www.qsl.net/w5www/gloomy.html
http://jazz-history.suite101.com/article.cfm/gloomy-sunday

Crafting a Coffin

It seems fitting that the first post on this blog should be an exploration of my own inner morbidity. In preparation for my upcoming Halloween/belated birthday party (and as my senior project for school), I am designing and building a coffin. The party theme is "the funeral of my youth," inspired by Victorian-era funerals. If you would like to see the design that I created in Google SketchUp, click on the above picture. My inspiration came from children's coffins of the 1800s, which were slightly octagonal and intricately detailed. I spent probably 2 or 3 hours perfecting the shape through Google's program. I then measured my height, shoe size, and shoulder span, and added 8, 2, and 6 inches, respectively, to those numbers. A bit of geometry and calculation was required to get the dimensions correct, but the mathematical work took only an hour or so. I made a list of the supplies I needed from Lowe's - writing down model and item numbers from the website proved greatly beneficial - and went with my mother's ex-husband to purchase the items. We ended up buying an 8x4 sheet of 3/4" sanded plywood for the base and a sheet of sheathing with the same dimensions for the lid and bottom. The wood was cut in-store, so it was much easier to load into the truck and carry once we got it home. As a side note, the look on the worker's face when I told him I was building a coffin was priceless. I wish I would have captured it on film. From the plywood, he cut me 2 16x14 pieces for the top and bottom, 2 68x14 pieces for the sides, 4 3x12 pieces for the corners. The sheathing was cut into a 74x22 inch piece, which left me with enough wood to fit the bottom in and cut it out later. Everything else I bought was hardware and decoration. It ended up coming to about $70 for the wood, 2 packages of 1 1/4" wood screws, a set of hinges with extra screws in the package, wood glue, stain, and a brush.
Once everything was ready, Mom's boyfriend and I went to work. He used the electric saw to take off the edges of the top piece at a 45 degree angle on both sides so the corners could be screwed in. We drilled two holes into one side of each corner and the top piece, then glued the wood together and drove the screws in. It managed to hold pretty well. He went ahead and cut the other end and the sides, too. However, it became apparent that we would need longer screws for the other end because he didn't drill in the same spot.
He bought the screws, and we repeated the process for the other end of the coffin. Attaching the sides proved much more difficult, since we had to hold the boards at the proper angle for each screw or risk the base tilting on us. We used the same method of drilling, gluing, and screwing the pieces together to form a box. I used a tape measure and some rough calculations to determine that we'd built it straight.
We had difficulty making the bottom fit. We cut along the length so it would match up, but I didn't account for the difference in length when we measured the angles. It took a few tries and a lot more math than I would have liked. Eventually, though, we simply put the board on top of the coffin, used a marker to outline it, and cut. It ended up being much more precise than trying to calculate angles and sides. This was further assurance for me that taking geometry was a complete waste of my time.
I decided that gluing the bottom on before attaching it to the sides with screws would prove messy and wasteful, so we simply drilled three holes near either edge of the base and two around each corner. Once we'd lined the bottom up with the sides, we screwed it on and had a functioning coffin, sans lid. James wasn't pleased with the angles, but we needed the project done within less than two weeks. For this reason, we both put our perfectionism aside and agreed to make a better coffin after the party.
He wasn't here when I started staining. It was probably too cold at 50 degrees Fahrenheit, but I wanted to add the finishing touches before it got any cooler out. I had a splint on my finger at the time, which made maneuvering a paintbrush exceedingly difficult. I started by applying a thin coat to both ends, leaving it on for 30 minutes, and wiping it off with a cloth. This didn't leave a dark enough color, so I didn't wipe off the sides when I'd stained them a second time. It took 3 coats on the ends. Only when I left the stain to dry on its own did the color turn out right. I had gone ahead and put the long piece of wood that was supposed to serve as a lid atop the coffin base. Although probably not the best method for experienced builders and those that aren't mathematically inept as I am, it worked well to simply trace underneath the plank and around the coffin. I came home from school one day and James had cut and attached the lid for me using the hinges we'd bought and short screws. They proved to be too long for the thinner lid, however, so he planned on changing them out posthaste. In the meantime, I applied two coats of stain to the outside and edges of the lid. Before my "funeral," I decided to stain the inside. I didn't have enough left, so I added water to the mix and did a coat on all the sides and the underside of the lid. I left it open to dry, and used two body pillows and a small square pillow with a comforter tucked over them for the lining. The project turned out much better than I expected, given my inexperience. Here's one last picture of me in the coffin. Enjoy.