Keep My Words

There are over 20,000 bodies buried underneath Washington Square Park.

The bodies are from a period spanning 1797-1825.  At that time, the land was purchased as a public buried ground for the city to bury its poor and unknown residents when they died.  The area was also used to inter those who expired from yellow fever and cholera.  City officials wanted to keep these diseased bodies at a distance because churches feared that even wealthy community members who died of contagious diseases could pollute the grounds of their cemeteries.

In January 2008, Washington Square Park was undergoing renovations.  After the Community Board expressed concern about the dead beneath the park grounds, the Park Commissioner agreed that they would not dig more than 1-3 feet below the surface.  However, city workers proceeded to dig 7-11 feet down.  While excavating they found four intact skeletons along with almost 100 human bones.

I enjoy going to Washington Square Park for this very reason.  There are still stories of people discovering bones as they stroll the grounds.  Sometimes I think the dogs can sense the dead below them.  Maybe they can smell it.  Occasionally I see the dogs digging in the park.  I curiously await their discovery of past lives.  I envision them uncovering bodies just like ours, only decayed to the bone and strangers to everyone savoring the lawn above their communal grave.

The City stated that the skeletons found in January 2008 would be examined and “reburied respectfully”.

In the early 1980s, two psychologists named Heinz Wimmer and Josef Perner conducted a series of experimental tests to see if children between the ages of three and five were able to attribute a false belief to someone else.  In other words, they were trying to find out if children understand that others could have beliefs about the world that are wrong.  This would determine if children had Theory of Mind, or the ability to comprehend that people have mental states different from their own.

Wimmer and Perner’s experiments usually involved children looking at skits, but in 1988 Alan Leslie and Uta Frith repeated the experiments with human actors and found similar results.

In one experiment, two children were brought into a room containing two boxes: box A and box B.  As they watched, the experimenter put a toy into box A.  Next, one child was taken out of the room.  While the remaining child watched, the experimenter took the toy out of box A and placed it into box B.  Finally, that child was asked where the other child will look for the toy.  More often than not, the child would fail by pointing to box B.  To pass the test, the child would have had to recognize that the other child has his/her own beliefs that may not correspond with reality.

I’m not sure if they ever took the departed child back into the room and asked him/her where to find the toy.  That seems like a dirty trick, which I suppose the world is full of.  Maybe the child’s belief system would be shattered upon seeing that what they knew to be true was actually false.  That could be the exact moment that the child begins to view the world as deceptive.  Hope and love become ideas only possible in Hollywood movies, and tears become so plentiful that it seems absurd to the child that such a river could run down his/her innocent cheeks.

Or, maybe the child would not give up, and he/she would simply look to the next box.  If there were a million boxes, maybe the child would keep searching.

I think I’m always looking to the next box.  And one day, I’ll find what I’m looking for.

Here’s a conversation I have had many times with various people:

“I love zombie movies. They are my absolute favorite,” I say in any discussion about filmgoing, or when no one is conversing at all and I just want to talk about horror movies.

“Me too,” many will claim. But most never fail to disappoint me when they follow up with, “Like 28 Days Later. That was an awesome zombie movie.”

At this point I usually shake my head, throw my hands in the air, and say, “28 Days Later was not a zombie movie. It was a movie about infected people.”

Cue debate, and usually agree to disagree.

The misclassification of zombies by my peers distresses me.

I am fully aware that the dictionary definition of zombie is:

(in voodoo) the body of a dead person given the semblance of life, but mute and will-less, by a supernatural force, usually for some evil purpose.
(informal) a person whose behavior or responses are wooden, listless, or seemingly rote; automaton.

That considered, we can witness zombies in various films (in voodoo) as well as in our every day lives (informal). But zombies in cinema are traditionally people who have died and come back to life with only a hunger for human flesh. One could say that I am a conservative zombie lover; I prefer zombies to be slow and stupid. However, I will not discredit the zombie-ness of a reanimated corpse that feeds on the flesh of the living solely because it’s quick on its feet (see the Dawn of the Dead 2004 remake and the lovely new film Zombieland).

I am not denying that the oldest zombie film is actually White Zombie (1932), in which the dead did not feast on the living. However I am claiming that zombies were not properly identified until over 30 years later in George Romero’s 1968 black-and-white masterpiece, Night of the Living Dead. Romero brilliantly continued his Dead movies as a trilogy through 1985 (Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead). In 2005 he released the much anticipated Land of the Dead followed by Diary of the Dead in 2007. The latter films leave something to be desired, but they in no way deduct from Romero’s genius. His next film, Survival of the Dead is said to be coming out this year, but I have no knowledge of a specific release date.

Please note that although they were generally comedic, I am somewhat accepting of the Return of the Living Dead zombies. Maybe it is because of their tie to the Romero films.  Romero worked with John Russo for the original 1968 film. When they parted ways, Russo retained the rights to any titles featuring “Living Dead”. Hence why Romero’s sequel are all “...of the Dead”. Unfortunately, the Return of the Living Dead zombies only ate brains, which negates their true zombie status.

Also, cannibals are not zombies. Cannibals are simply people who eat people. Therefore, Cannibal Holocaust, though a fine film, is not a zombie movie. Additionally, the undead in Dead Snow do not qualify as zombies. They didn’t even eat people! Terribly disappointing, albeit I did enjoy the dismemberment scene.

So, back to 28 Days Later. Might I take this moment to mention that I actually enjoyed 28 Weeks Later more? The first twenty minutes alone were amazing, and the eye gouging scene was glorious. In any case, both of those films were delightful, but they were not zombie movies. They were about an infection, and the diseased people did not die in order to become contaminated. Additionally, they didn’t kill people to infect them, and they certainly didn’t devour human flesh as all real zombies do.

That’s right, I said real zombies. There is a separate but related debate that I find myself in:

“Why do people even need guns? Like, why would someone need an AK-47?” someone will ask.

“Because they want one, maybe they collect guns. People collect knives and swords. As long as they are responsible with it, who cares?,” I’ll reply. (This conversation also usually ends with me saying “Agree to disagree.”)

“Yeah, but some people aren’t responsible and they kill shopping malls full of innocent people. If there were no guns, then the world would be a better place,” my opponent declares.

“Yes, and if there were magical fairies flying around granting wishes, the world would be a better place too. But there are gun and there are no magical fairies,” I say with a sigh.

They won’t let it go. “But why? Why would someone need a gun?”

I know it’s a pointless debate. I don’t want to get into it with him/her about how fun the shooting range is, or how I collect shit that others would think foolish. So, I respond with what my brother told me years ago when I asked him why he needed so many guns.

“Think about it. You’re out camping. And then, a zombie attacks you. Wouldn’t you want a fucking gun?”

I had asked Chris what he thought about stone babies and/or harlequin babies.

“That’s terrible, I don’t think of that kind of stuff,” he answered.

“You never have terrible thoughts?” I challenged him.

He seemed appalled.  “No.  I don’t know.  No, I don’t.”

I have terrible thoughts.  The most vile, revolting information tends to loiter in my mind.  It’s a blessing for me that these ideas linger.  I consider mulling over the gruesome and offensive a beloved pastime.  And lately, I have been pondering the existence of stone babies and harlequin babies.

In 1955, 26-year old Zahra Aboutalib went into labour.  At the hospital, she witnessed another woman and her baby die during childbirth while undergoing a Caesarian section.  Afraid that this might be her own fate, Zahra left the hospital without giving birth.  Zahra lived in Casablanca, and in Moroccan culture it is believed that a baby can live inside its mother’s womb to protect her honor.  So her faith comforted her, and days later the severe labour pains that Zahra felt subsided.

However, almost 50 years later Zahra felt a similar, excruciating pain.  Doctors suspected a tumor and arranged for her to have an ultra-sound.  When results were inconclusive, Zahra went to see a specialist.  A detailed MRI revealed the shocking truth: the large mass unidentifiable by the ultra-sound was actually the child that Zahra had conceived decades prior.  The child had survived by attaching its placenta to vital organs around Zahra’s stomach, and it continued to develop inside of her.

When surgeons removed the seven pound baby, they found that it was completely hardened.  This was because the fetus was too large to be re-absorbed into Zahra’s body.  As protection against infection, her immune system covered the unborn baby in a calciferous substance causing it to dehydrate and die.

The infant was mummified and turned to stone.  This rare occurrence is called a lithopedian, or a stone baby.

Harlequin babies are debatably more disturbing.  Harlequin ichthyosis is a rare skin disease.  Infants suffering from this abnormality appear scaly and suffer from severe deformities.  The ears and nose are often completely absent, with only holes where these body parts would be.  The eyelids are usually inside out and therefore prone to severe pain and infection.  The lips are generally turned outwards, creating a horrifying scowl on the child’s face.

Because of the dry, cracking skin on a harlequin baby, the child rarely survives for more than a few days.  Dehydration, infection, and breathing problems as a result of the condition prove to be fatal.

The first case of harlequin ichthyosis was described in the diary of a Reverend from 1684.  He wrote:

“On Thursday, April 5, 1684, I went to see a most deplorable object of a child, born the night before… I scarcely know how to describe it. The skin was dry and hard and seemed to be cracked in many places, somewhat resembling the scales of a fish. The mouth was large and round and open. It had no external nose, but two holes where the nose should have been. The eyes appeared to be lumps of coagulated blood, turned out, about the bigness of a plum, ghastly to behold. It had no external ears, but holes where the ears should be. The hands and feet appeared to be swollen, were cramped up and felt quite hard. The back part of the head was much open. It made a strange kind of noise, very low, which I cannot describe. It lived about forty-eight hours and was alive when I saw it.”

These are terrible thoughts.  Now I have ousted them from my mind and onto this computer screen, creating room for more.  My repulsive admission of nightmarish reveries makes me wonder what terrible thoughts occupy your mind.

The written score of As SLow aS Possible (ASLSP) is eight pages long.  The play time is 639 years.

It’s currently being performed on an organ at St. Berchardi church in Halberstadt, Germany.  John Cage originally composed the piece for piano in 1985, with a second, longer version for the organ written in 1987.

The performance began on September 5, 2001.  However, it wasn’t until a year and a half later that the first sound was played.  This chord lasted two and a half years.  Over time, the weights holding down the organ pedals have been moved and more pipes added to the instrument.  A machine continually delivers air to the pipes to keep the organ playing.

The performance of ASLSP at St. Berchardi will end on September 5th, 2640.

“I’m interested in making something that I don’t understand,” Cage has said.

Cage also composed a piece called 4’33” (four minutes, thirty-three seconds).  It premiered on August 29, 1952, at a modern piano music recital.  Pianist David Tudor performed the composition, which consisted of three movements.

First, Tudor sat at the piano and closed the lid.  After a few moments he opened the lid; this was the end of the first movement.  The actions were repeated for the second and third movements.  Tudor timed these motions with a stopwatch while turning the pages of the score.  Throughout the entire piece he never played a note.  This is exactly what Cage intended.

“They missed the point,” Cage said of the audience.  “There’s no such thing as silence.  What they thought was silence, because they didn’t know how to listen, was full of accidental sounds.  You could hear the wind stirring outside during the first movement.  During the second, raindrops began pattering the roof, and during the third the people themselves made all kinds of interesting sounds as they talked or walked out.”

Per Cage’s reasoning, there is always music.  One just needs to slow down, and listen.