Re: Plasticized Corpse Exhibit

The Runner wasn't gross, it was resplendant and glamorous and dazzling

and glorious and yes, gray, although the others PROBABLY were in full

color, as are the other examples of plasticization I have seen. The

muscles were all flayed off and flapping in the wind, the naughty bits

dangling and blown, all frozen in an instant that implies movement and

speed as well as any sculpture I've seen. It made me shiver to briefly

imagine an Arlington Cemetary of sculpture, row upon row of tasteful

artistry all far to complex and meaningful for me to have ever imagined

on my own; I could feel the hair on my neck rising just thinking of so

much extravagant, preternatural beauty surrounding my imaginary walk for

miles in all directions and evoking the same inexplicable sensations as

being amidst the Totem Collection in the Chicago museum, all shivery and

reverent and venerative and eerily interrelated.

I imagined the procedure becoming de rigueur among the wealthy, opening

up new oportunities for creative artists and changing the landscape of

the mortification, of the mortician's art; new techniques of mortice

developed to secure and display the actual bodies, the dissolution of

tombstones. The masses, disposed to emulation of the wealthy, would

follow fashion and flaunt grandiose, majestic, elaborate displays, all

shrugging off this mortal coil to leave eternal personalized testimony,

some pompous and bloated, some as dramatic and pretentious as this post.

I spent nearly three minutes caught up in this chimera when I realized

that Usenet was a more realistic indication of how the great unwashed

masses would transform my imagery, how Arlington would become mile after

mile of "Me too, add me to the list", ingenuity and originality replaced

by "Uh huh uh huh I'm gonna be blowin' myself for all eternity, huh huh

huh..." It's just too awful to think about.

Rev. Magdalen, I been participating only marginally in alt.slack for the

past few weeks and missed your arrival; you seem quite well suited to the

enterprise. Welcome.

Rev. Random the Other

Gription Clench

reverand@mindspring.com

"Truth's smile when she beholds her face in a perfect mirror..." Hey, I can DO that!