Death in Miniature

Over the weekend I had a conversation which led me to chance upon this rather sinister little project created by Frances Glessner Lee. Lee was prevented from attending medical school because she was a woman and through her interest in medicine, forensics's and dollhouses was inspired to create 18 dioramas of scenes of unnatural death, from suicide to murder all contained within dollhouse rooms. The rooms were photographed by Corinne Botz and are collected together in a compelling book called 'The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death', from which the photos one here come. What struck me was the amazing detail in the dioramas, from blood spatters to buckshot in a wall to the face of a doll an eery red from carbon monoxide poisoning...these studies play upon our most morbid curiosities and within each on lies a story of life cut short be it by one's own hand or that of another. The dioramas are still in use today as forensic teaching aids but like murder mystery fiction or true life accounts of murder they stir up the intrigue, the outrage and the voyeur in the layman much more than they do the desensitized student of forensics; these microcosmic tombs forever telling the tale of their tiny
inhabitant's grisly end.

For those as morbidly curious as me more of the Botz photos can be found here:

Nutshell Studies

La Llorona

There is a great song, sung by Chavela Vargas....it's about the myth of La Llorona, the weeping woman who drowned her children to free them from poverty, it's said she can be heard crying by the river at night...funny it's a theme that manifests itself in many a songwriters mind...'Snow White Diner' by the Handsome Family has the lines 'a woman drove her Saturn into the black water killed herself and her two kids strapped in the back seat. She'd lost her job and didn't want her kids to be poor'
It's a poignant topic I think but it does happen, here's a sad article describing a La Llorona from 1901 reported in the New York Times





Todos me dicen el negro llorona;
negro, pero cariñoso.
Todos me dicen el negro llorona;
negro, pero cariñoso.

Yo soy como el chile verde, llorona;
picante, pero sabroso.
Yo soy como el chile verde, llorona;
picante, pero sabroso.

Bajabas del templo un día, llorona;
cuando al bajar yo te vi.
Bajabas del templo un día, llorona;
cuando al bajar yo te vi.

Hermoso huipil llevabas, llorona,
que la virgen te creí.
Hermoso huipil llevabas, llorona,
que la virgen te creí.

Yo no se que tienen, las flores, llorona,
las flores del camposanto.
No se que tienen las flores, llorona,
las flores del camposanto.
Que cuando las mueve el viento, llorona;
parece que están llorando.

Ay' de mí llorona, llorona,
llorona, llevame al río.
Ay' de mí llorona, llorona,
llorona, llevame al río.

Tápame con tu reboso, llorona,
porque me muero de frío.
Ven tápame, con tu reboso, llorona,
porque me muero de frío.

Si, porque te quiero quieres, llorona;
quieres que te quiera más.
Si, porque te quiero quieres, llorona;
quieres que te quiera más.

Si ya te he dado la vida, llorona;
¿Qué más quieres? ¿Quieres más?

All seems infected that the infected spy, as all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye....

'She had jaundice, really bad. When she was dying even her tears were yellow. Even her little tears were yellow.'

It's funny how songs evolve and change like stories with each telling....

THE GALLOPING MAJOR
(George Henry Bastow - 1906)

Stanley Kirkby - c.1910


All the girls declare
He's a grand old stager
Bumpety-bumpety-bumpety-bump
Here comes the Galloping Major

Bumpety-bumpety-bumpety-bump
Here comes the galloping major
Bumpety-bumpety-bumpety-bump
As proud as an Indian rajah

All the girls declare
That I'm the golden pater
Hi, hi, clear the way
Here comes the Galloping Major

Bumpety-bumpety-bumpety-bump
As if I was riding a charger
Bumpety-bumpety-bumpety-bump
As fit as an Indian rajah

All the girls declare
That I'm the gallant major
Hi, hi, clear the way
Here comes the Galloping Major


Now I always had it as

Bumpety bumpety bumpety bump
as though you were riding a charger
Bumpety bumpety bumpety bump
as proud as an indian raja
and all the girls declare
that I'm a gay old stager
Hey! Hey! clear the way
here comes the Galloping Major.

on dwarfs, malingerers and Bachelor's Row.....

People watching. It is addictive…worse than that, it is virtually pathological once you get into it!
I must confess to an almost morbid curiosity towards the outskirts of society, the comings and goings of these familiar yet strange (in many ways!) faces as they punctuate my daily routine or drift into view of my beady eye, unwittingly starring in their own quasi-fictional soap operas.
Where I live there is an alarming quantity of gruesome midgets, it’s a bit like ‘Willow’ on some days when they are clustered in their little herd (what is the collective noun for malign dwarfs?....a snipe of dwarfs, a pox of dwarfs…suggestions on a postcard please….) and sadly Happy, Bashful, Sleepy etc all appear to be drinking elsewhere leaving Grumpy, Haggard and Sleazy behind. Now, they might lead the most mundane, prosaic lives you could imagine but with a little over active imagination it all becomes rather interesting!!
Public transport provides especially rich pickings, there are a few regular faces to be had there….the angry weasel hat-man, Sergeant Bilko, ABSO Jones (on phone:‘yeah, alright bro, you got any drugs, innit?’) and the boy with the dead eyes….you can’t help but wonder where they drift off to and a part of you hopes it isn’t just to defrost a chicken kiev and some oven chips before a night in front of Corro but return to some elaborate comic book villain lair, like a cave hollowed behind the rosette on the Admiral’s hat on Nelsons Column with his left eye as a spy window over London or some subterranean network of tunnels and laboratories swarming with colour coordinating henchmen! Alas, I think the former is entirely more plausible! It would be far more interesting if Bachelor’s Row, stretched along the bar, all thinning hair and regret, consisted of the most Machiavellian and crazed criminal minds in the land, or a virtual Dr.Strangelove war room collected around their flat pints and peanuts but I may find myself being disappointed…it is not megalomania and world domination that flickers behind those eyes….or is it……?

blah

The fax machine on my desk is possessed. It has just let forth the screams of hell and disemboweled itself.
A chicken will be sacrificed over it to draw out the demons as soon as I have finished making this paperclip chain (a mighty 27 paperclips in all, one red!!).

conkers

For a person such as myself, who still feels a small rush of excitement at seeing the first conkers of autumn, shiny skinned, rich brown little nuggets lying beneath yellow-green leaves, fresh split from their almost military looking shells covered in new-born bloom, this season provides much time for pondering. I have to confess to a nostagic moment as I wrangled with myself whether or not to quickly stoop as i was exiting the alley way and pocket myself a shiny conker, turning it in my hand in the warmth of my pocket as I strode towards work...secretly there was a wanton desire to challenge some freckle faced, buck-toothed child to a conker death match (naturally after, baking, injecting with concrete, coating in varnish etc etc to up the ante!) and whoop gratuitously when I won, perhaps allow myself a little dance ('running man' or 'stirring the pot' preferably)...a chant for good measure and all the other little showboating, bad grace actions of a grown woman-child making a little boy's lip quiver after smashing his conker into oblivion after a few dirty knuckle shots and a steel-eyed stare.
Sadly i had to go to work instead although the 3 supreme conkers i had gathered sat defiantly in my bag!