creepy old hag

[Guest jackdm3]

"Back home we got a taxidermy man. He gonna have a heart attack when he see what I brung him!"

[StPatrick]

Both positive and negative, this thread has shown that apparently I have one of those crazy Jack-ceivers, because I saw a Primus vid and was kind of fired up.

This is probably not a good thing. Despite that, it's time to add some serious throwdown:

...and there it is. That may be the best live guitar solo ever recorded. The dude with the black guitar who does the awesome is named Marty Friedman. I'm guessing his mom is okay that he didn't become a doctor (rimshot!).

[Guest jackdm3]

Marty got unique and disappeared. Said he wanted to do pop of a Japanese flavor. Don't know how that turned out. Dave said he was the best Megadeth guitarist.

[Guest jackdm3]

Hope you caught them this past winter on that album's 20th anniv. My second time to get Deth.

[StPatrick]

Started a new post re: awesome musical performances to try and un-derail this one. Post all your favorites there, and let's keep this one about undying (corpse) love.

http://www.tngunowners.com/forums/general-off-topic/42802-badass-musicians.html

[Guest jackdm3]

Then we should play "Cold Ethel."

[JAB]

Man, she didn't take her hubby and her sis out and have 'em resin-impregnated, then sit 'em up around the table in their finest outfits... That would be strange, odd, unusual, or even a little bent, but it would still at least be excusable.

What she did was have their rotting corpses dug up then sacked 'em out on the couch and in the garage so she could go out and pet 'em when she felt like it. And that's just plain bug-f****** nuts, no matter how you stack it.

Nope. Not rotting. Not if they were embalmed through a modern embalming process. Bodies so treated do not rot. They might dessicate (dry up) eventually but they will not rot. In fact, they probably looked much like they did the day they were buried - just as if they had been resin-impregnated. Just for example, on my visit to the Body Farm there was one corpse from South Carolina (iirc) that had been embalmed before the funeral home realized that no one was going to claim it - so they called Dr. Bill and asked if he wanted it. At the time I saw it, the corpse had been lying, fully exposed, on the ground for close to a year. Due to dessication, the eye sockets were empty (eyeballs are mostly water.) The face was starting to look a bit leathery but the hair, including the beard and mustache, were still in place. The torso was full (like a living person) but not swollen or distended (i.e. no gas build-up from decay.) The skin in places also had a bit of a leathery appearance and was a bit transluscent in places (due to the lack of blood giving color to the skin) - some small blood vessels were clearly visible under the skin but the fingernails, toenails, etc. were all still in place. In fact, had you known the person in life, you would have instantly recognized him. There was not a sign of a maggot, etc. on the cadaver (unlike the non-embalmed cadavers nearby.) The only part of the cadaver that had been 'compromised' was the left arm - the flesh, muscle, etc. were missing from a small patch on the forearm, near the wrist, so that the radius and ulna were clearly visible. Someone asked Dr. Bass if that was the start of decay and he replied, "No - this body will never decay. That's just where the groundhogs have been gnawing on him." See, there are more than the forces of decay that work on a corpse in the woods of East Tennessee - and being able to study those things is valuable, too.

In fact, Bass showed us slides once of some Civil War era crypts that had been broken into. He had been called in because the local authorities thought that someone had been murdered more recently and the body hidden in the old grave. In the slides, the corpse was whole from the waist up - at least the torso and head were, along with the arms and part of the hands - but it was just cut off below the waist. Bass said that this was because of the embalming methods of the time. They used gravity to push the blood out and embalming fluids in. The body would be in the basement of the funeral home, etc. while there would be a hole in the ceiling, as well as in the ceiling of the main floor, to allow a tube to go up to a container of embalming fluids in the 'attic'. Openings would be made (or a tube placed in a main blood vessel - I can't remember all the particulars) and gravity would help the embalming fluid push the blood out and replace it. Due to this, the torso and upper body would be well embalmed (and preserved) but there wasn't enough force to push the blood out and embalming fluid into the lower extremeties - so that the corpse would be preserved (pretty much forever) from the waist up but not from waist, down. Now, because their methods, etc. weren't as good as modern methods, the preserved parts of the corpse had turned black and looked quite leathery and sort of mummified but they had not 'rotted'.

Ever hear of Rosalia Lombardo? She died ninety years ago and her embalmed body still looks like she is just sleeping - as you can see in the pic included in this Wiki article and other pics you can find on the 'Net. Of course, there are indications that the body is finally beginning to show signs of decomposition (after all, the techniques used were from nearly a century ago and she has been in a glass topped coffin), but you get the idea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalia_Lombardo

So, when the zombie apocalypse comes and all those corpses crawl out of the grave, don't expect to get away simply because they are decaying and falling apart. They won't be.

Oh, and for the record, I don't think I would have eaten the pie, either.

Edited July 9, 2010 by JAB

[Major Kong]

When I saw the title of this thread I thought it was a story about Nancy Pelosi.

[Guest Jamie]

Nope. Not rotting.

Well, according to a lady I used to talk to that's a retired mortician, an embalmed corpse does still decay, but very slowly. Yes, removing the blood and internal organs does help, but since no embalming method or chemical is perfect, it doesn't stop it completely.

( BTW, her description of the whole embalming process, while interesting on one level, is likely enough to make even those with the strongest of stomachs blanch. Especially the part about the device that removes the internal organs.... I forget what it's called, but it sounds like a cross between a shop vac and a meat grinder. )

One way or the other though, I'll bet the old lady's house had a rather definite reek to it, whether from rotting flesh or embalming fluid.

Anyway, I certainly don't claim any expertise in the preservation of dead things... my embalming skills being limited to tanning a hide here and there, or dumping a snake in a jar of alcohol.

Edit: I just went back to the old forum where the conversations with the mortician lady occurred. Unfortunately, they've done away with that portion of the forum, and all those posts are gone. :-\

It would have been interesting to cut 'n paste 'em here for discussion....

J.

Edited July 9, 2010 by Jamie

[Guest Jamie]

Ever hear of Rosalia Lombardo? She died nearly a hundred years ago and her embalmed body still looks like she is just sleeping - as you can see in the pic included in this Wiki article and other pics you can find on the 'Net. Of course, that isn't to say that all embalmings - even modern ones - work quite that well, and there are indications that the body is finally beginning to show signs of decomposition, but you get the idea.

Rosalia Lombardo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Oh, and yes, there have been many instances of corpses looking like they had either just died, or were sleeping after a very long period of time. Sometimes ones that weren't even embalmed to begin with.

Not even gonna hazard a guess as to why...

I'm still betting a corpse that's been kept in someone's garage for 10 years has got to be... ripe... no matter what's been done to it beforehand.

( A garage isn't typically climate-controlled, and heat is going to play a factor in how well the preservation methods work, I'm sure. )

J.

Edited July 9, 2010 by Jamie

[kb4ns]

When I saw the title of this thread I thought it was a story about Nancy Pelosi.

FTW!

[Guest Bluemax]

At least she didn't call a taxidermist and ask them if they would "mount" her sister ;)

[Guest jackdm3]

WOW! Never woulda thought of that. You sik!