Eileen Maksym's Blog, page 7

Rats!

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I found out today that April 4th is World Rat Day! I’m over a week late to the party, but every day is a good day to celebrate rats! Rats are sweet, intelligent creatures that make fantastic pets, and Kara of Kara’s Rat World wants you to overcome prejudice and appreciate these terrific rodents!

Weird Wikipedia Wednesday: Alien Hand Syndrome

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ALIEN HAND SYNDROME

A person with alien hand syndrome can feel normal sensation in the hand and leg, but believes that the hand, while still being a part of their body, behaves in a manner that is totally distinct from the sufferer’s normal behavior. They lose the “sense of agency” associated with the purposeful movement of the limb while retaining a sense of “ownership” of the limb. They feel that they have no control over the movements of the “alien” hand, but that, instead, the hand has the capability of acting autonomously—i.e., independent of their voluntary control. The hand effectively has “a will of its own.”

A Boy Named Sue

This is  famous song, but I hadn’t actually heard it until recently. If you’ve never heard it, you’re missing out! And if you have, then you probably want to hear it again. So here it is. Enjoy!

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Wait For It

I was late to the bandwagon, but I’ve been mildly obsessed with the musical Hamilton for a couple months now, and “Wait For It” in particular has been on repeat for the past couple weeks. One of the things I love about Hamilton is how all the characters, these mythical men (and women) from the founding of our great nation, are human beings. There are no good guys or bad guys, just people trying to do the best they can in momentous, uncertain times. Alexander Hamilton is a brilliant man with major issues of arrogance and womanizing. And Aaron Burr, the “villain in your histories,” struggles with a need to live up to the expectations of his dead parents’ legacy and the resulting hesitance to stick his neck out for anything. Who can’t relate to that?

Exit Light, Enter Night

I love covers, particularly when the cover is in an entirely different musical genre as the original. This is a fabulous example of that. SHEL is an indie-folk group composed of four sisters, Sarah, Hannah, Eva and Liza. They take Enter Sandman, the quintessential metal song by the indomitable Metallica, and bring it into their world of acoustic guitars, mandolins and violins. The result is a beautiful (and beautifully creepy) lullaby you’ll want to put on repeat.

Scary Illustrations

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Like many kids who grew up in the late 80’s / early 90’s, I loved the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books. I was morbid from a very early age, so I particularly enjoyed pondering its exquisitely terrifying illustrations. Stephen Gammell reached right into the darkest depths of the human psyche and extracted these writhing, dripping, shrieking visions and put them on paper and into the minds of young children, and I love him for it. A couple years ago, the books were re-released, but with different illustrations, and there was an outcry of condemnation. How dare they deprive a new generation of facing these horrors head-on? The story of a bride who went missing while playing hide and seek on her wedding day and whose skeleton was found years later in a trunk in the attic is scary, sure, but the above illustration takes it to a whole new level.

Recently artists who were inspired by these gruesome works held an art show in San Antonio in honor of the illustrations, and they really did it justice. Check out their Instagram for some really awesome macabre pieces.

Opening Day!

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Growing up in Florida before the Tampa Bay Rays were a thing (the team started playing in 1998, when I was already in college), I wasn’t really interested in professional baseball. I remember the year the Twins were in the series and we watched because my grandparents lived in Minnesota and sent us “Homer Hankies” to wave when the Twins hit home runs. And I played girl’s softball (I was a catcher and I loved it). Other than that, though, baseball wasn’t really a part of my life.

That changed in 2003.  I was living in Boston and working on my master’s in theology, and the Red Sox were hot. My grad school was small and close-knit, so those who were hardcore Sox fans soon infected the rest of us. I found myself putting the game on the TV when I was at home and writing papers or knitting or sewing or whatever. We all excitedly tracked the team’s rise, held our breath as they got SO CLOSE to the Series…only to fall in the AL Championship. The next year I was fully into the Sox. I even went to a game when I was pregnant and supposed to be on bed rest. I was in Boston when the Sox won it all, on an October night when a lunar eclipse turned the moon red.

The next year we moved away from Boston, and while I remained a die-hard member of Red Sox Nation, I couldn’t watch as many games. (For some reason the Chicago stations insisted on airing White Sox and Cubs games instead. Go figure!) I cheered them on in two more World Series wins, but it was different. I wasn’t steeped in the culture. I didn’t know the players. It was always my team, but somehow it wasn’t my team.

We moved back to Boston in the summer of 2015, and when it comes to baseball? I’M HOME. Last year I watched Big Papi’s astounding final season. And today? Today is opening day. I drove by Fenway Park this afternoon and saw the throngs of Sox Nation making their way to the park. And now I’m home and the game is on and life is good.

Whodunit? We May Never Know.

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Once upon a time, forensic scientists believed that they could determine who killed someone by the last image left on the victim’s retina. Nowadays we understand why this is ridiculous, but at the time people believed that the human eye worked like a camera, with the retina acting like film, and that the last thing a person saw before their death would be retrievable by removing the eyes and examining the retina. Crazy, huh?

Unfortunately, some forensic techniques used today are also scientifically questionable. We see them used to great effect on shows like CSI, when in truth they’re actually a lot less legitimate than we’re led to believe. This Frontline article lays out which techniques are scientific, and which are less so. Fingerprints? There’s no scientific proof that everyone’s fingerprints are unique, and examiners can be biased by context. Firearm identification? Apparently the idea that a bullet can be matched to a specific gun relies on assumptions that may not be valid. Arson investigations? For years it was taken as truth that certain burn patterns indicated certain things, like accelerant. People have been convicted and even executed on the basis of such evidence. Now, it looks like those “facts” were bunk, and that signs thought to be absolute proof of arson can be produced through natural combustion.

All of this is frankly terrifying. On the one hand, it’s horrible to think that people who were innocent have been jailed, or even executed, due to faulty, unscientific forensic techniques. On the other hand, how do we even go about catching and convicting the people who have actually committed these crimes?

Creepy Crawly Pets

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I have a difficult relationship with creepy crawlies. I love spiders, and I’m terrified of them. I’m fascinated by insects, but if I’m startled by one I will likely scream “GET IT OFF MEEEEEEE!” So this article about choosing the right bug as a pet evokes some conflicting emotions. I would really love to meet and hold a giant African millipede, and might even be willing to do what entomologist Sammy Ramsey is doing in that picture there. But there’s a distinct chance that the minute I touch a millipede I will NOPE right the hell out. The article is a great read, though, particularly if you either really want a bug as a pet, or have never even thought about it and wonder why anyone would want to.

Mean Bunnies!

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I wrote about medieval manuscripts a couple days ago. Today I discovered from this awesome post that drawing deadly bunnies in the margins was a thing among medieval scholars. Perhaps this is where Monty Python got the idea? LOOK AT THE BONES!!!