Been There, Done That, Got the T-Shirt and Sent it Back....

The circle of life is a misnomer.

There isn't merely one circle of life, but a series of concentric circles all spiraling inward, with the intent of collapsing the universe in on itself....or failing that, with the intent of driving us all mad. The number of times in the past year I can remember uttering the phrase--"Here we go again"-- is staggering. Seems the older I get, the more repetitious the doldrums of life become.

And it isn't that I am against routine...quite the contrary. What I am against, however, is the mind-numbing, soul-sucking, time-wasting monotony of stagnation----both physical and mental. It seems every time I stop and look around, I find myself back on the same collapsing spiral. All forward motion only serves to sling-shot me back to the ever-sinking center of the circle.

This isn't intended as a depressive missive or even a manic rant....just a statement of fact, an observation of life as I see it...

I was never a fan of the Tilt-A-Whirl-- in fact, I'm getting nauseous just thinking about it-- but there isn't a better image that I can think of to describe the gut-churning roundabout that life has strapped us into.

Anybody know a backdoor out of this Funhouse? I just want to have a go on a different ride for a while.....

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I is for...

... Iron Maiden

The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins? ---Edgar Allan Poe

---and not the English heavy metal band from East London...

Day 2 in the realm of morbid/macabre torture devices finds us back in the Middle Ages (there was definitely a fashionable trend of imaginative torture devices during this time). Though, the Middle Ages isn't really when we should be turning our attention when we discuss the Iron Maiden. In fact, there has been some debate as to the exact appearance of this monstrous creation.

It's probably easiest to relocate such a torturous thing back to a time when it seemed everyone was as skilled at exacting a confession as they were at creating the tools to exact those confessions. It's easier to blame ancestors from several hundred years ago than to accept that anyone of civilized disposition would be capable of doing such horrible things with such terrif…

Y is for Yeth Hound.....

Yeth Hound--- one of the incarnations of the "Black Dog" myth, this one located specifically, in Devon, England.

"Black Dogs" appear in myths across the world, most are associated with death and bad omens... i.e. Hell Hounds.

The Yeth Hound is said to be the spirit of an unbaptised child that takes the form of a headless black dog. The Hound wanders the woods at night making pitiful wailing sounds (though, I'm unclear as to how it makes wailing sounds without having a head).

The Black Dogs were possibly one inspiration from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's ghost dog in The Hound of the Baskervilles-- "an enormous coal-black hound, but not such a hound as mortal eyes have ever seen."

Heed Not, the Lonesome Cry
Heed not, the lonesome cry, the baleful wail echoing through the woods. Seek not, the black hound's sigh, look not where the headless creature stood.
One sound, your limbs will shake, your heart filled with the deepest dread. One glimpse, your sou…

V is for...

... Vrolik Museum

The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins? ---Edgar Allan Poe

How about a morbid museum?

Still used by the medical faculty and students at the University of Amsterdam, the Vrolik Museum is a unique collection of odd bones and skulls, pathogenic specimens, and an assortment of anomalous embryos.

The collection was amassed by Dutch anatomist, Gerardus Vrolik (1775-1859) and continued by his son, Dutch anatomist and pathologist, Willem Vrolik (1801-1863). And since Willem's death, various donations have expanded the collection even further. Most specimens are human, though a few zoological specimens have trickled into the collection. Preserved remains, plaster casts, and various models show an assortment of congenital deformities and malformations.

This is one of those places that isn't for the faint of heart---certainly not for those who are easily moved or triggered by…

From the Inkwell, From the Vein.....

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