Good Eats
An eyewitness account of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The implications of the Human Genome Project. Heart transplantation, liver transplantation in an HIV-positive person with hemophilia, and surgery to separate conjoined twins (twice!).
Dollhouse scenes of brutal deaths. Growing pharmaceuticals like food crops. Liquid breathing. Cocaine plastic. The secret of color-changing Silly Putty, hugging Patch Adams, and a girl who got pregnant from oral sex.
If I weren’t already familiar with this stuff, I could kill hours here.
Go ahead. You know you want to.
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The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death
There is a miniature community of horrors on the third floor of the Maryland Medical Examiner’s Office. A display of 18 exquisitely crafted models of actual crime scenes presents grisly vignettes of violent death.
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Edgar and Me
When I moved to Baltimore in 1982 I knew nothing about the city except that it had a pioneering trauma center, and Edgar Allan Poe is buried there. I’d read in the Memphis Commercial Appeal about the mysterious visitor who left cognac and roses at Poe’s grave every year on the night of January 18th, the anniversary of his birth. Learning more about this unusual tribute was on my to-do list once oriented in my new hometown.
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To Oh-Oh-Seven
The leg’s in the smoker and the Juice is on ice
Gore rests on laurels at Vick’s dog fights
Goodbye Fredo, fade-out Sopranos
Pootie YouTube nappy-headed hos
Bubble bursts, bridge falls down
Six entombed underground
Surges, purges, foot-tapping urges
Castro’s not dead, but Ladybird is
Helmsley’s pooch, Gere’s smooch
Lindsay’s hooch, Britney’s cooch
Blackwater wildfire Dick’s cousin Obama
They don’t have maps! Hey, remember Osama?
Hillary, Rudy, Mitt, and Fred
Tainted toothpaste, toys with lead
Pet food cavemen quagmire in Iraq
Shit meet fan: Turks attack
Phony soldiers man-sized safes
Leave her alone! Scooter’s walk chafes
Monks riot, lawyers in tear gas mist
General Betray Us, Bonds’ asterisk
Bernanke iPhone Iran bombing any day
Don’t tase me bro! I’ve never been gay.
None too soon this year will be through
We’re kicking ass whoop-dee-damn-doo.
[a cookie to anybody who identifies the six quotations, without Googling]
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