Piece Of Art

Windigo can be the hairy hominoid, the cannibal giant, and the psychosis. The three are merging and swirling around in the recent story of the beheading and eating of flesh on the Canadian Greyhound bus. The Windigo (also known as the Wendigo, Windago, Windiga, Witiko, Wihtikow, and numerous other variants) is an unknown hairy hominoid tied to the legends and folklore of First Nations people linked by the Algonquin languages. The Windigo is a bipedal hairy creature, equal to the Eastern Bigfoot, Stone Giant, or Marked Hominid in some classification systems, which is often said to have aggressive behaviors and a malevolent cannibalistic spirit into which humans could transform, or which could possess humans. Those who indulged in cannibalism were at particular risk, and the legend appears to have reinforced this practice as taboo. Windigo Psychosis is a culture-bound disorder which involves an intense craving for human flesh and the fear that one will turn into a cannibal. Some ethno...

A film involving the suicide of an individual who is pressured by a secret society, alluding to the background of rumors of ritualized deaths and copycat suicides theorized among secret society researchers, is worthy of some attention. The Brotherhood of the Bell is a 1970 made-for-television movie produced by Cinema Center 100 Productions and starring Glenn Ford. The director Paul Wendkos was nominated in 1971 by the Directors Guild of America for "outstanding directorial achievement in television." It should be noted that Paul Wendkos (b. 1925) is still alive, and went on to direct other intriguing movies, such as The Mephisto Waltz (1971) and episodes of the harmonically named television program, "Route 66." The motion picture has been interpreted as a fictionalized portrayal of a real-life, academic-based secret organization, in general. But The Brotherhood of the Bell is something more. It allegedly is especially based on the secret society called the Ord...

There has been a murder-suicide at the the "dark drum" tower in Beijing, on the first day after the opening of the 2008 Olympics. A relative of the US men's volleyball coach has been killed, another family member seriously injured, and their Chinese guide also wounded, all in a knife attack in Beijing, the US Olympic Committee said. Those attacked included Todd Bachman, his wife Barbara, their daughter Elisabeth and a Chinese guide. (The U.S. head volleyball coach is Hugh McCutcheon and his assistants are Ron Larsen and John Speraw, who is also the UC-Irvine head coach. They all live in Orange County, California. McCutcheon, a native of New Zealand, is married to former U.S. national team player Elisabeth Bachman.) Drum Tower The American man was killed and his American woman companion wounded, on Saturday, August 9, 2008, by a Chinese man who then leapt to his own death, falling approximately 130 feet. The body of the attacker, who was wearing a red shirt, lay on the ...

The Joker is wild. But so are a many other things overlapping with The Dark Knight . Following my posting on "The Dark Knight Curse" , a phenomenon that was even discussed on CNN yesterday, some questioned whether or not the Joker is actually holding a "calling card" with a decapitated head. I was told that in the actual movie the Heath Ledger character has another card in his hand. First to clear up what is on the card. Here below is a closeup of the card from a movie props site , labeled specifically "Dark Knight, The (2008), Joker's Calling Card." The card shows an inverted decapitated head. See larger version at bottom of posting. Death cards and Joker's cards are usually a little more subtle than what you are seeing here from The Dark Knight . The Ace of Spade has traditionally been a "death card" left on bodies in military situations, as depicted from the Vietnam War in Apocalypse Now (1979). Heath Ledger's Joker in The Dar...

A Batman beheading? Have people so quickly forgotten a recent tragedy? Heightened awareness of decapitations has occurred in the last few days due to the incidents in Brazil , Dubai , Greece, and, of course, the bus event in Canada (during the showing of The Legend of Zorro ). Also, please note it is in the earlier The Mask of Zorro , that features Zorro's/Diego’s brother’s beheading. In that Zorro movie, the decapitation is done by a sadistic, psychotic Texian Army Captain named Harrison Love. There remains no explanation of why the name "Badger" became the code word given to suspect Vincent Li of Edmonton, Alberta, by the law enforcement officers Chronologically, it should be mentioned that these news items were proceeded by a Batman-related beheading. On Saturday, June 28th, at Six Flags Over Georgia, 17-year-old Asia Leeshawn Ferguson of Springfield, South Carolina, scaled two six-foot fences and passed through restricted areas posted as dangerous to visitors. Fer...

Malcolm Brabant's BBC News article for August 3, 2008, "Gruesome crime shocks Greek isle" tells that police on the Greek island of Santorini have shot and injured a 35 year old knifeman who decapitated his girlfriend and walked around the streets with her head. The suspect was shot during a dramatic car chase in which he crashed into a motorbike and badly injured the rider and passenger. The crime is one of the most gruesome in Greece in recent memory. CNN is reporting late on August 4th that there are rumors the same suspect was involved in a possible beheading of a man north of where the suspect beheaded his girlfriend. It follows, of course, on the heels of the incident last week on July 30th, on the Canadian bus where a man beheaded a fellow passenger. By week's end, in the following article, "Decapitation Suspect Allegedly Ate Victim," the story grew more disturbing. A police officer at the scene of a fatal stabbing on a Canadian bus reported seeing t...