MATRON OF MORBIDITY

MATRON OF MORBIDITY from Narratively on Vimeo.

Elinor Wrobel, eighty, isn’t your typical collector. At home, rooms are filled with art, costumes and objects, but in the heart of Sydney, Australia, Elinor spends her days preserving hundreds of human body parts collected from the Sydney Hospital Morgue. The Morbid Anatomy museum, housed in Sydney Hospital, is lined with glass jars showing the disease and suffering of bygone generations.

A former nurse, art collector and curator, Elinor recovered the collection from a musty attic crawling with cockroaches and fought tooth and nail for the specimens to be restored and exhibited to the public. Several times, hospital administrators have sought to transfer the specimens elsewhere, or convert the museum into office spaces, but so far Wrobel has prevailed. She believes the hundreds of unique anatomical specimens from people dating back to the 1890s are not only an important resource for medical students, but also a “beautiful” reminder of our own mortality.

Medical Oddities from the Bowels of the Mütter

I've always been a goth at heart. Medical oddities are prominent in my darker macabre interests.

"Disturbingly informative," is how museum director Robert Hicks describes Philadelphia's Mütter Museum--items of interest include a gangrenous hand, wax models of extinct diseases, deformed bones and body parts. Now imagine what's in the basement. Science Friday got a behind-the-scenes tour.

TIM BURTON'S VINCENT: featuring Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven

Beautiful animation that makes my inner goth smile... Directed by Tim Burton and narrated by Vincent Price.

Perfectly Gothic Day

I do love a dark and dreary day. We don't get many of those here in Texas... It's usually either sunny and hot or sunny and cold. Today was a perfectly gothic late October day in Texas, complete with tornado sirens this morning, followed by hours of dark clouds and steady rain... The inner goth in me loves these days.

We'll see if we can come up with a few links to set the mood:

Jiří Barta- The Last Theft

A few weeks back I posted a Nurse With Wound song that had a video which was a mashup of clips from the Czech animator and filmmaker, Jiří Barta. This is the original short film from which most of those clips come. I have to say, this film makes my inner goth smile... So light a black candle, sit back and enjoy.


The Last Theft- Part 1



Part 2



Part 3

Totally Goth

It is a cloudy cool rainy day. I've lit some candles and there is a soft spot in my heart for all that is goth... I think I'll spread the love.  Here are a few favorites.
 Some Edward Gorey and the Gashleycrumb Tinies.

What dark day isn't complete without a little Bauhaus to dampen the mood.


A classic clip from Harold and Maude.


And to finish off with the gothest of them all. Here is the full film, Nosferatu...

He is Risen!

Happy Zombie Day!

 Matthew 27:51-53

⁵¹ Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, ⁵² and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; ⁵³ and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many.

Brothers Quay- Street of Crocodiles (1986)

While we are on the subject of stop-action animation. I'll post one of my all time favorites. The Brothers Quay create beautifully dystopian worlds that are one part Franz Kafka, one part Joseph Cornell, and one part Hans Bellmer...
Part 1

Part 2

Street of Crocodiles (1986) by Timothy & Stephen Quay.

And no, these are not the people who animated the Tool videos. That person badly ripped off the Brothers Quay.