Wednesday, August 5, 2009
After five PM, deposit brains in this slot
Readers of the previous post might be interested in knowing that Whitman's brain is the only part of his body not in the Camden tomb. Since it was "abnormally large" and of obvious interest, it was removed for study by the American Anthropometric Society, an institution that would have interested Whitman, with his interest in phrenology; the Society's intent was to study brains of the finest sort. There it's said to have been dropped and destroyed by a clumsy lab assistant. (Thus sparing Whitman the fate of Walt Disney, whose frozen head, I understand, awaits a technologically-enabled resurrection.)
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2 comments:
Mark, this is terrible!
Im already having a fit about Walt's inflated ego and DHLawrence's ashes being gathered up by Frieda et al to be re-deposited in a shrine built by her second husband where she is buried at the entrance - honestly! some people!
And musing on Allen Ginsberg's musing while sitting on a tombstone and staring at Apollinaire's "rough mehhir/a piece of thin granite like an unfinished phallus. . ."
An unfinished phallus?
Can we do Jackson Pollack in Green River Cemetary East Hampton next?
This is more alarming than I can articulate on a humid Wednesday in August. The broken brain of Walt Whitman!
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