I’ve once said that certain people were so utterly worthless that the carbon of their body mass would be better attributed towards a tree. Or grass. Or even the mold that grows on cheese after 4 years in the back of your refridgerator.
Now if that tree were cut down and used to produce this book, it would not be a bad thing. Still, without omnipotence, I can hope that their maimed bodies become poked by psychotic and dull clumsy doctors…yeah, the kind that my mom always wanted me to marry but were withery spirited and had some sort of wacked out fucked up dark side involving pudding and necrophila. I am quite cozied up with the book at hand.
Stiff
by Mary Roach is a nifty, fun, and fascinatingly engaging book about “The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers”
And yo, who said that reading about cadavers couldn’t be bathroom reading?
Ok, I’m so sure that’s what the author really wanted to hear. But Ah! So True.
Now mind you, I’m not really good at talking about the death thing. Or things dead. Things that are even remotely sickly make me ridiculously uncomfortable. It’s rather pathetic and true. And watching shows like CSI or Dead Like Me don’t count because…well…it’s CGI and witty dialogue. Pinch me, I never expected real life dead stuff to be appealing…but I was stuck on the toilet a good 15 minutes post-tinkle (not a #2) and flipping page over page with curious delight.
You’ll be happy to know that I’ve since taken up reading this book in bed. It’s less moist. (Tinkle-reading was post shower. My toilet’s clean, thank you very much.)
If that little testimonial doesn’t tweak your interest, just check out these
Chapter Titles
1. A Head is A Terrible Thing to Waste – Practicing Surgery on the Dead
2. Crimes of Anatomy – Body Snatching and Other Sordid Tales from the Dawn of Human Dissection
3. Life After Death – On Human Decay and What Can Be Done With It
4. Dead Man Driving – Human Crash Test Dummies and the ghastly, necessary science of Impact Tolerance
And other brilliantly tasty goodness in several other chapters.
I’m only partway through. So far I’m way digging it.
The sheer trivia value from the book jacket *ALONE* is valuable as ammo to drop jaws and stop conversation at your next ever-so-painful social engagement that you’re forced to attend for no very good reason.
A sly bon mot of “Did you know that Human Mummy Confection and Shit Phosphorous were prescribed drugs in the 1700s?” should do the trick.
But you wanna know what makes this book cool to me?
Learning that there’s a chick named Yvonne. And her job is to cut off heads.
Virtual Book Tour
July 7th:Mike Carvalho, Philadelphia
July 8th:Kristin Garrity, Mountain View
July 9th:Carrie Bickner, New York City
July 10th:Heath Row, Boston
July 11th:Min Jung Kim, Oakland
July 14th:James McNally, Toronto
July 15th:Erik Benson, Seattle
July 16th:Jason Kottke, New York City
July 17th:Joshua Benton, Dallas
July 18th:Geoffrey Long, Washington DC
