Sorry for the limited amount of posts lately. After three years I’m about ready to give up on this tumblog. Just not feeling it lately. But before I take my sabbatical, we have to celebrate the tradition of creepy and weird and scary things as we usually do in the month of October (not that we don’t cover this on a semi-regular basis but still). So while I get my act together and find some new places to tell you guys about, let us revisit some death masks I wrote about three years ago (you know…when nobody read this thing, not like anyone does now).
Forget about the Guinness Brewery tour! Next time you are in Dublin, check out author James Joyce’s death mask at the James Joyce Tower and Museum, which is currently closed for renovations (hey…just put it on your to-do list). I’ve seen nearly everything related to everybody’s favorite dead U.S. President, except for this amazing piece of history. Abraham Lincoln’s death mask was made at the time of his autopsy and is currently on display at the National Museum of Health and Medicine near Washington D.C. (which may or may not be open due to a current government shutdown). Even though I’ve been to London more times than I can count, I don’t remember seeing the death mask of Heinrich Himmler at the Imperial War Museum (I also highly recommend its Northern cousin) maybe because I’m old and forgetful. Supposedly British intelligence officials made the mask as proof of Himmler’s death. He had bit into a cyanide pill hidden in his molar cavity…what a way to go! Last but not least, we’ve got the death mask of former hottie/electrical engineer/inventor of many things/all-around genius/famous asexual Nikola Tesla. It can be viewed at the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade, Serbia. Did you know Tesla most likely invented the smart phone? In 1901, Tesla described to his funder and business partner, J.P. Morgan, a new means of instant communication that involved gathering stock quotes and telegram messages, funneling them to his laboratory, where he would encode them and assign them each a new frequency. That frequency would be broadcast to a device that would fit in your hand. Talk about ahead of his time!
We can only hope that someone thinks we’re special enough to creepily cast our faces in wax or plaster so they can stare at us for the rest of eternity. FINGERS CROSSED!!!
