Eternal "Life" of the Dead

 

When seeing this mummy of a former beauty, the more than 2,000 years old woman, Xin Zhui - also known as "Lady Dai" - from the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD) I feel relief at the thought that I've decided to get cremated and not have a grave site. Lady Dai still has her own hair, she is soft to the touch, and her ligaments are not stiff, but will still bend. The main point is that all of this is not for her to experience, it's for those scientists who have inspected her and deemed her dead body the best-preserved human mummy in history. Did the ones who turned her dead body into this mummy expect that it would end up like this? Hardly, as they loved and admired her for what she had been when alive. Humans always have wanted to keep the moment alive eternally if they feel that it's the peak of a life time. However, the ravages of time often turn that wish into mockery, and by now Lady Dai has become scary and abhorrent. The myths of her beauty would have lived for ages, based on her picture if it hadn't been for the mummy .... 

https://youtu.be/DxKRfLg5dbg?feature=shared 

Just A Little PingPong About GHOSTS and MONSTERS ....

 

 

Everythings considered ghosts are not bad, no, they are rather nice. They come to check our ability to sustain shocks, that's all they do, except maybe kissing us now and then. Also they may try to play ball with our heads and hearts. However, all in a very friendly manner.
Ghosts are good at saying "booh", but some cry and moan. Those poor, unhappy ones are just wet sheets, and they tumble down in puddles of misery, trailing the wet spot while wailing their agony. That kind of ghosts want to sit in your lap like babies, maybe they even try to suckle your breasts, milk or not.

As to monsters like e.g. vampires, they are driven by fear. They never use mirrors for fear, yes, for fear of themselves, for their two feet fangs or even more. A mirror in your hand will turn them into pudding, their fangs will fall out from their mouths with a rustle, the claws will shrivel into nothing to be concerned with. However, they do keep their bad, infected breath so beware if you meet a smelly, well-dressed and often exceedingly polite weirdo. Look out that may be the big, bad monster from your childhood, the one standing in the corner of your bedroom at night, just looking at you, the one who nearly killed you with surprise by not doing anything. That may be a younger brother of Count Dracula, lurking, smelling and looking stupid -
well, out you whip your mirror in a flash of the moment ....

The REAL 007

The funniest part of any lists of the many achievements of the actor Christopher Lee (1922-2015) is that at one point he played a Bond villain because one may say that he - in real life - was the famous movie agent, James Bond, alias 007. How come when James Bond after all was a fictional character by Ian Fleming? Well, the inspiration for the famous author's still much beloved English super agent was his cousin, i.e. the actor Christopher Lee.

As they were cousins I take it that both of them may have been descendants of Charlemagne. At least Christopher Lee was and, what's more, they even look alike.

The Medieval emperor Charlemagne is a most impressive forefather who is known as the "father of Europe". In 800 Pope Leo III crowned him Holy Roman Emperor, and at his death in 814, his empire encompassed a large part of Western Europe. Neither Christopher Lee nor his cousin, Ian Fleming, inherited this illustrious royal status which is not valid today, but notorious acting brought on a title of "Sir" to the family.

To many/most people Christopher Lee still is best known as Dracula or some other vile creature as he often portrayed villains like him. He was very tall, and his personality as well as his commanding voice gave him an aura of natural authority which is perfect for special kinds of movie villains, but in real life he was a hero who fought monsters, namely Nazis in World War II. Much of what he achieved in his capacity of a genuine agent may be even more impressive than what is known today. As to this part of his career he retired from the RAF in 1946 with the rank of flight lieutenant.

 

I remember an interview with his Danish wife, the model Gitte, and she was asked whether he was as frightening at home as in his many film roles. She laughed and called him the kindest and sweetest man she knew. According to her there were no traces of the blood thirsty Count Dracula in his personality. 

 

In my opinion the monster Dracula is not as interesting as one of the other villains he played: The Tolkien-character of Saruman. Christopher Lee was the blood sucking Count Dracula in several horror movies, but as Saruman he had more material to play with - so to speak. Funnily enough he was the only one of the actors from these movies who knew Tolkien in person, which is one more of the many strange or just funny coincidences of his life.  

 

Movies obviously wasn't enough for him as he also delved into a musical career: He both sang and recorded music between 1986 and 1998. Amazingly enough he worked with several heavy metal bands when he was in his eighties. All in all he was a truly impressive man from the very beginning to the end of his life. 

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Christopher-Lee

 

 

https://www.history.com/topics/middle-ages/charlemagne 

 

 

Wikipedia

 

 

The Furtive Glance And The Pretence

 

In itself the glance is of no substance, so to speak, but still it may be very, very offensive, maybe even like a fist to one's face, a slap or a punch. As an action it's a combination of borders crossed by somebody who were not invited and thus had no right to ignore those borders. He - or she - is an intruder who should have staid away, but didn't.

These three people are in the public area, where both the man and the women have a right to be. He is special as he is supposed to be blind or weak-sighted, but obviously isn't. Actually, the cane may be part of a disguise, making it possible for him to mask both himself and his more or less sinister designs upon the young ladies passing by. One might say that his cane is sort of an alibi: "I'm blind, yes, I'm disabled and therefore not dangerous ...." However, the very idea of someone not visually impaired who pretends to be blind makes me think of the serial killer who scored many of his female murder victims by using a similar decoy: Ted Bundy.

When he, dressed in a fake plaster casket, approached a well bred and polite, young woman and she, out of kindness, set out to help the poor, but rather charming, wounded and seemingly disabled man he moved in and killed her. In many instances he also did unspeakable things to her dead body which to me makes everything much worse because it proves the contempt he felt for his victims. What had they done to him to deserve being treated like that? Nothing, except existing .... 

 

It starts with a glance that may - or may not - be intruding, but one thing is for sure: The eye of someone like e.g. Bundy sees something that men or women who don't feel the urges he felt would be able to see. The glance leads to a lethal fantasy that most people don't understand and which may cost the life of many others, including themselves ....