Halloween Countdown 2017, Day 28

Here’s another new and interesting article, this one by two professors of psychiatry: “The science of fright: Why we love to be scared.”

The photo below is here by the wonderful @lizziebelle.

If you’re not following Strange Company, you should be; the blog offers a unique change to “walk on the weird side of history.” And I do mean weird.

One of my favorite recent “Clipping of the Day” posts from Strange Company is too fascinating not to share. Here’s an excerpt from the “Iowa Public Health Bulletin,” Volume 14 (1900):

The following from the July number of the “Embalmers’ Monthly” will be interesting to our readers, as illustrating a too little recognized cause of death.

“A tall, lank man, with a narrow head and a positive expression on a well-cut countenance, entered the marble works of Frazier & Leffel, at Centralia, Ill., recently, and intimated to the business manager that he wanted a tombstone for his wife. Manager Leffel, with one eye to business and the other adjusted to a proper expression of sympathy in his patron’s bereavement, proceeded to show him the large array of designs in his establishment.

"A suitable stone was soon found, and here the work began. His patron of positive countenance had more to do with the inscription than with the style of stone. It must be just so. He must have cut on it just what he wanted and as he wanted it. He was willing to pay his money for what he wanted, but didn’t want any assistance to say what that was. The undertaker tried in vain to suit him, but to no avail. He couldn’t catch the spirit of his dream. There was something in this case that out-reached the rigid experience of many years. Finally the tall, lank patron said: ‘Give me your pencil and I’ll tell you what I want.’ And here it is:

'Kiss me and I will go to sleep.

ALICE 

First and Last Wife 

of 

Thomas Phillips.

Talked to death by friends.’

"No date of birth, no date of death is given. The age is omitted. Thomas had but two purposes in mind–one was to let the world know that he would never marry again, and the other was to let it know that his wife had been talked to death by the neighbors.” 

That’s not the way this little introvert wants to go. I’m just saying.