August 15, 2009
Dear Diary,
Today I was so awesome! I’ve started a new Simon Winchester book: “The Man Who Loved China.” It seems pretty interesting so far, although I haven’t gotten very far into it yet. It’s about Joseph Needham, who I guess researched China extensively in the mid-20th Century, and did a lot to spread knowledge of the Celestial Empire to the West. I’m sorry, but I just love the term Celestial Empire for China. It gives you such an awe-inspiring mental image of that ancient empire. I admire its historical self-sufficiency and quiet arrogance. That’s mostly the reason why I picked out the book, in fact. Besides the Dravidians and Persians, I think the Chinese are my favorite non-Western civilization, and to be fair, I don’t know as much about the Dravidians as I should. From what I know, though, they sound cool.
If you’re interested in a nice little primer about history, I recommend Larry Gonick’s “Cartoon History of the Universe.”
The main thing I like about it is that it covers a lot of non-Western history, which pretty much my entire academic career ignored. It’s full of great stories, like Lu Pu Wei, and it presents information well, but humorously, which I find is usually a good way to remember things.
I also did some more prep work for the party tomorrow. I made a huge fruit salad that tastes delicious with yogurt. Basically it’s my attempt to outdo Aladdin’s, which every Cornellian knows has the yummiest fruit, nut, and yogurt salad. Mmm-mmmm… Raisins in a fruit salad are so yummy. Their texture adds even more than their taste, but they’re not a typical fruit salad fixture. Try ‘em out sometime if you get the chance and make your own fruit salad. Just don’t overwhelm your fruit salad with melon, because I hate that. Ugh…
You know what? We haven’t had an anecdote around here in a while. It’s time for a new one, and boy is it a creepy one!
Here, then, is what I was able to note immediately after the decapitation: the eyelids and lips of the guillotined man worked in irregularly rhythmic contractions for about give or six seconds… [and] ceased. The face relaxed, the lids half closed on the eyeballs, … exactly as in the dying whom we have occasion to see every day in the exercise of our profession. … It was then that I called in a strong, sharp voice, “Languille!” I then saw the eyelids slowly lift up, without any spasmodic contraction … such as happens in everyday life, with people awakened or torn from their thoughts. Next Languille’s eyes very definitely fixed themselves on mine and the pupils focused themselves. I was not, then, dealing with the sort of vague dull look without any expression that can be observed any day in dying people to whom one speaks. I was dealing with undeniably living eyes which were looking at me.
After several seconds, the eyelids closed again, slowly and evenly, and the head took on the same appearance as it had had before I called out. It was at this point that I called out again, and, once more, without any spasm, slowly, the eyelids lifted and undeniably living eyes fixed themselves on mine with perhaps even more penetration than the first time. … I attempted the effect of a third call; there was no further movement-and the eyes took on the glazed look which they have in the dead.
- Beaurieux, Gabriel. Archives d’Anthropologie Criminelle. T. xx, 1905.
Quoted in: Roach, Mary. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2003. Pages 205-206.
How cool is that?! Wicked cool is the correct answer, for those of you playing at home. Wicked cool.
-Matthew
