Category:
Death

Desairology

Noella Charest-Papagno coined the term 'desairology' to mean doing hairstyling and cosmetics for the deceased. She created the word by combining 'des' (for deceased), 'air' (for hair), and 'ology' (a branch of learning). She thought the term sounded better than 'necrocosmetologist,' which had previously been the job title for funeral hairdressers. Her term seems to have caught on within the profession. At least, it has a wikipedia page.

In 1980, Papagno also authored the first book on hairdressing for the dead — Desairology: The Dressing of Decedent's Hair.

She created the somewhat bizarre video below around 2015. It's titled, "Dead lady speaks. Looks better now."

More info: JJ Publishing Group



Fort Lauderdale News - Apr 27, 1986

Posted By: Alex - Fri Jun 10, 2022 - Comments (0)
Category: Death, Hair and Hairstyling

Death By Yoga?

Robert Antoszczyk died on June 3, 1975. That much everyone agrees on. But how he died is more controversial.

Robert Antoszczyk



Initial reports claimed that he went into a yogic trance and projected his spirit out of his body, but that he didn't know how to re-enter his body. So he died. This explanation remains popular with the Fortean crowd.

The official explanation, which emerged later, is that he died from a cocaine overdose. However, his friends and family always contested this, insisting that he was very much into clean living and never drank, let alone took drugs.

Over at medium.com, Nick Ripatrazone has an article in which he explores this case, as well as the broader interest in 'astral projection' during the 1970s.

Palladium Item - June 30, 1975



NY Daily News - July 3, 1975

Posted By: Alex - Fri Jun 03, 2022 - Comments (0)
Category: Death, Forteana, Paranormal, 1970s

German Rocket Car

First attempt: OK. Second attempt: not so much. The way they are covering up the car with a tarp at the end does not bode well for the fate of the driver.

The relevant Wikipedia page.

Posted By: Paul - Wed Jun 01, 2022 - Comments (4)
Category: Death, Destruction, Inventions, 1920s, Europe, Cars

The Loved One Launcher

Starting at $375.00 from CremationSolutions.com.

The Loved One Launcher is the only device of its kind that will shoot earthly remains over seventy feet into the air!!, allowing for a wide dispersal of ashes that can be observed by all in attendance. To add to the celebration, ashes can be mixed with confetti or even streamers for a dreamy visual effect, creating a beautiful, joyful scene that sets the perfect tone. Paying homage to a loved one’s life is simple and intimate with what feels almost like a daytime fireworks display in their honor. The Launcher should not be aimed at any structure or living thing as its blast is powerful.





They should next come out with a catapult model for non-cremated loved ones.

via Dave Barry

Posted By: Alex - Sun May 08, 2022 - Comments (6)
Category: Death

Follies of the Madmen #531



"Our pants are endorsed by shirtless murderers."

Source.

Posted By: Paul - Fri May 06, 2022 - Comments (8)
Category: Death, Fashion, Advertising, 1960s

Usnea, or Skull Moss

Mummy, unicorn's horn, and bezoars appealed to the imagination because of their unusual character, but even the most commonplace substances might develop supposedly medicinal virtues if they had unusual or gruesome associations. Usnea was a substance of this nature. It was moss; not ordinary moss, but moss scraped from the skull of a criminal who had been hung in chains. Usnea was an official drug in the pharmacopeia until the nineteenth century; it was carried by all apothecary shops, and the first edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica devoted a section to its curative properties. Usnea was present in the prescriptions of the best physicians over a period extending from the Middle Ages until well after the American Revolution.
Source: Howard W. Haggard, Devils, drugs, and doctors (1929).

image source: reddit



More info from Frances Larson, Severed: A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found (2014):

Paracelsus recommended the 'moss', or lichen, that grew on a dead man's skull for seizures and 'disorders of the head', and to bind wounds, on the basis that the 'vital spirit' released at death would be transferred from the skull into the lichen that started to grow on its surface. The fact that these skull-grown lichens were quite rare only increased the value of the cure. Skull moss seems to have been a particularly popular remedy in England and Ireland, perhaps because in these countries dead criminals were often left on public display until their flesh started to rot away and things began to grow on their bones. In 1694 it was reported that London druggists sold suitably mossy skulls for 8 to 11 shillings each, depending on the size and the amount of growth on them. . .

There were reports of people growing moss on stones and then spreading it onto the skulls of criminals, as a way of harvesting the tiny green plants for sale. In practice, apothecaries probably used anything that grew on skulls, and some things that did not grow on skulls, to maintain their supplies.

Posted By: Alex - Fri Apr 29, 2022 - Comments (0)
Category: Death, Medicine, Patent Medicines, Nostrums and Snake Oil, Renaissance Era

Death’s Doings

Next time you need cheering up, have a gander at this jolly volume, available at the Internet Archive.



Posted By: Paul - Tue Apr 26, 2022 - Comments (0)
Category: Death, Books, Nineteenth Century

Six drown trying to save chicken

Actually, only one of them jumped into the well trying to save a chicken. The others were trying to save humans. But still, it was a mass tragedy apparently started by an attempt to save a chicken.

Edmonton Journal - Aug 2, 1995

Posted By: Alex - Mon Apr 04, 2022 - Comments (1)
Category: Animals, Death, 1990s

Death by Drama

Paul posted last week about a real-life murder that occurred onstage during a play. This reminded me of another onstage death I once read about in Jody Enders' book Death By Drama and Other Medieval Urban Legends.

The death is said to have occurred in 1549, during a performance of the play Judith and Holofernes, which tells the Biblical (or Biblical apocrypha) story of Judith who cuts off the head of an Assyrian general, Holofernes. The producers of the play supposedly decided it would add a touch of realism if the actor playing Holofernes really was decapitated.

The details from Enders' book:

According to the legend, when Philip II made his triumphal entry into Tournai in 1549, he was greeted by a painstakingly realistic performance of the drama of Judith and Holofernes. Frederic Faber relates that producers Jean de Bury and Jean de Crehan had arranged a very special entertainment for the future monarch. A convicted heretic and murderer was to assume the role of Holofernes long enough to be decapitated during the play by another convicted felon. The latter, having been pardoned, would just as briefly assume the role of Judith, his executioner:

Jean de Bury and Jean de Crehan, duly charged with decorating the streets, had imagined rendering in its purest form the biblical exploit of Judith. Consequently, for filling the role of Holofernes, a criminal had been chosen who had been condemned to have his flesh torn with red-hot pincers. This poor fellow, guilty of several murders and ensconced in heresy, had preferred decapitation to the horrible torture to which he had been condemned, hoping, perhaps, that a young girl would have neither the force nor the courage to cut off his head. But the organizers, having had the same concern, had substituted for the real Judith a young man who had been condemned to banishment and to whom a pardon was promised if he played his role well.

The story goes that the two substitutions were accepted by the two unnamed men. Being an actor / executioner was apparently preferable to being banished, and death by decapitation during drama was preferable to being skinned alive (something that the Eel of Melun might himself have understood).

"Judith" had only one condition to meet: to provide acting so good that it wasn't acting at all. . .

The fantastic narrative next shows Philip arriving just as the axe is falling. As real blood supposedly begins to flow, it prompts applause in some, indignation in others, and curiosity in the prince, who remains implacable as the body of "Holofernes" goes through its last spasms:

In fact, as Philip approached the theater where the mystery play was being represented, the so-called Judith unsheathed a well-sharpened scimitar and, seizing the hair of Holofernes, who was pretending to be asleep, dealt him a single blow with so much skill and vigor that his head was separated from his body. At the [sight of] the streams of blood that spurted out from the neck of the victim, frenetic applause and cries of indignation rose up from amid the spectators. Only the young prince remained impassive, observing the convulsions of the decapitated man with curiosity and saying to his noble entourage: "nice blow".



Enders has doubts this onstage execution ever really took place, but can't rule out the possibility altogether.

In the story's favor: Philip II really did go to Tournai in 1549; Jehan de Crehan was a real person; there really were plays performed in Philip's honor; and Tournai had a history of executing heretics, and of offering decapitation as a "kinder" alternative to more gruesome forms of execution.

The points against the story's veracity: not a single, extant contemporaneous source mentions this onstage decapitation. The first references to it only appear several hundred years later. And it stretches credulity to imagine that a condemned prisoner would obligingly play his part in the performance, even to the extent of pretending to be asleep before he was decapitated.

Posted By: Alex - Fri Mar 18, 2022 - Comments (4)
Category: Death, Theater and Stage, Fables, Myths, Urban Legends, Rumors, Water-Cooler Lore, Sixteenth Century

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Alex Boese
Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes.

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Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1.

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