By January of 1944, Colgate University geologist Professor Harold Orville Whitnall has, like so many others around the globe, pretty much had it with the War in the Pacific. Too many American boys are dying overseas, and the world needs a plan for a quick resolution to the conflict. So much so that Whitnall feels compelled to unveil a rather unorthodox master plan.  That month in Popular Science Magazine, he suggests that the U.S. bomb Japan’s volcanoes. 

Why? First, Whitnall concludes, the Japanese are terrified of volcanoes. He cites the fact that people in Japan place shrines at their bases hoping to ward off impending eruptions. According to Whitnall’s logic, the Japanese worshipped volcanoes like gods, and blowing “these smoking mountain deities” to smithereens would really freak people out.  Second, bombing the volcanoes might trigger earthquakes!  “Hardly a day passes without some of Hirohito’s dupes feeling the earth wobble beneath their feet,” Whitnall continues, and this, of course, must also be very scary to the people of Japan. Whitnall argues that the island nation with its 30 active volcanoes and “hundreds that jut skyward in uneasy slumber,” along with its unstable, fissure-ridden crust is one of the most geologically volatile places on the planet. The earnest professor concludes, therefore, that U.S. bombers should agitate the island’s fragile topography as much as possible thereby wreaking havoc on the Japanese population through acts of geological sabotage, which, in turn, will virtually guarantee a triumphant U.S. victory.  Problem solved. 

Crazy, right?

But, Whitnall is serious. He wants readers to know that he isn’t just some mad scientist doing that twiddling thing with his fingers and laughing hysterically towards the heavens. To the contrary, he has been cooking up this magmatic bombing campaign concept of his for quite some time:

Since shortly after Pearl Harbor, I have recommended that our all-out attack on the Japanese homeland be accompanied by bombing raids on Japan’s volcanoes.  I believe that explosives dropped down their throats may cause such a vomiting of lava and ash as to hasten the day of unconditional surrender.  Bombs are growing bigger and bigger, and I am increasingly convinced that such an attack is worth trying.

Whitnall acknowledges that his idea might prove to be just a little controversial to some of the more narrow-minded members of the scientific community, but, he contends, the naysayers lack the kind of forward thinking upon which this country was founded:

The idea of bombing volcanoes into activity and jarring the earth into earthquakes probably will be met with mingled derision and approval.  Ultraconservative scientists whose vision is often swathed in mathematical formulas, will snort, “Impossible!” while those with the imagination of Ben Franklin with his kite may murmur, “Could be, could be.”

The whole thing is pretty chuckle-worthy in its audacity (albeit truly terrifying and jingoistically unconcerned with the plight of ordinary Japanese citizens), but Whitnall’s article becomes a lot more ominous when you consider the fact that (obviously) the United States at the time has something far more horrifying up its collective sleeve than obliterating volcanoes.
 
I’ll let Whitnall himself fill you in on the rest of the details of his own earth shattering plot in the original article which you can find here.

Meanwhile, check out another seemingly hair-brained WWII bombing idea in this History Channel segment on weaponized bats.   
 

 
Via Weird Universe.

 
Since they first came to public consciousness with the release of Turn on The Bright Lights, the go-to description of Interpol has been “New York band that sounds like Joy Division.” Only thing is, though, I’ve heard a fair few Joy Division songs, since I’ve only been an obsessive devotee for pushing 30 years, and, um, no. There are other bands that have made far, FAR bigger dents in Interpol’s sound than Joy Division, and the fact that that vacuous comparison has persisted for over a decade among people who I know for a fact have ears is utterly baffling to me. I get the feeling that notion grew virally from an early promotional news release—it’s not like entertainment writers don’t have a demonstrable history of lazily parroting press materials. The reality is, Interpol owes a much greater debt to The Wedding Present, and a colossally HUGE one to My Dad Is Dead. Just listen:
 

“Year Of Loss”
 

“Two Pills In The Water”
 
You can be forgiven for the audible “Who?” you unleashed at that name-check. Influential bands don’t get much more obscure than My Dad Is Dead. They were a he - the band’s lone constant member and sole songwriter was one Mark Edwards, variously based in Ohio and North Carolina, and the earliest releases were indeed the work of a one-man-band. He released albums on Homestead in the ‘80s, making him labelmates with Sonic Youth and Nick Cave, then moved to Scat, the label that brought Guided By Voices to the world’s attention, and then later still released with Emperor Jones, the Austin imprint that boasts the single coolest record label website ever, period. So it’s not like his stuff was impossible or even difficult to find in its day, Edwards just never really caught on big like his contemporaries. From his Trouser Press bio:

Actually the work of a person rather than a band, My Dad Is Dead’s voluminous output has plainly explored the troubled waters of the soul, both personal and philosophical. Under his open-to-misinterpretation nom de disc, Cleveland (later transplanted to North Carolina) singer-writer-one-man-band Mark Edwards makes music whose appeal lies largely in its matter-of-fact handling of trauma. Growing steadily in fluency and confidence, Edwards, who writes, plays and sings with instrumental and vocal help from a floating gene pool of Cleveland musicians (Prisonshake’s Chris Burgess has also produced the bulk of his recordings), makes records that are as comforting as they are harrowing.

My Dad Is Dead, most of whose songs were indeed inspired by the loss of Edwards’ father, is a compelling, hypnotic debut that ranges from thrashy aggression (“Black Cloud”) to supple melodicism (“Talk to the Weatherman”) to industrial gloom (“Say Goodbye”). The unifying thread is the downbeat lyrics; the sole weak link is Edwards’ flat singing, which improved on subsequent releases.

“Downbeat” really sums it up - as catchy as the tunes could often be, the lyrics were ALWAYS a bummer. A prime example is the gorgeous but heartbreaking “The Water’s Edge,” which chillingly describes the grief of a man left behind by a woman who drowned herself while he helplessly stood by. I’ve linked both the original and the absolutely stunning cover version by Tsunami.
 

 
Though Edwards’ heyday lasted from 1985 to 1997 give or take, he continued the project into the oughts and released albums on his own Unhinged label, only retiring the My Dad Is Dead moniker a couple of years ago, when he returned to Cleveland for a homecoming/farewell performance. He’s helming a new project called Secular Joy—absolutely worth checking out if any of the above music resonated with you. And if you’re keen to explore, there’s TONS of My Dad Is Dead material to be had free of charge. Through January 1, 2014, Edwards is giving away his 1995 album For Richer For Poorer—his least downbeat album—on his Bandcamp page on a name-your-price basis. He’s also offering a live recording from 1988, his opening set for a Throwing Muses show. And his first five albums and an odds-and-ends compilation have been available free of charge on his web site for about ever. If ’80s depresso-rock has ever been even slightly your thing, those early releases are seriously worth checking out.

My Dad Is Dead, For Richer For Poorer

My Dad Is Dead, Live in 1988

My Dad Is Dead, five full albums for free + rarities

As is sadly to be expected for a lesser-known band that lived the most vital years of its existence before broadband and high-res phone cameras achieved ubiquity, good live footage is hard to come by. Here’s some audience-cam footage of the excellent song “World On A String,” from 1991. Though the on-camera mic leaves a lot to be desired in terms of sound fidelity, this footage accurately captures the live feel of that era of the band.
 

The Beatles, 1972
 
Tadanori Yokoo was one of the dominant figures, if not the dominant figure, in Japanese design starting in the Sixties. Some people liken his work to Andy Warhol but I scarcely see that, unless you’re talking about general importance and influence, in which case I can’t judge. I think Richard got it right last year when he invoked Milton Glaser, Seymour Chwast, and Peter Max, particularly Max.

In addition to his (usually) symmetrical, DayGlo, ligne claire works, Yokoo also did a good number of rock-related graphics. The funny thing is that they’re in a completely different photocollage style—you can tell it might be by the same person but aside from that, they’re not too similar to stuff like this. I find all of these images delightful and fascinating. They’re trippy and detailed with a strong design sense, and the use of photos prevents them from flying off into the ether.

Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, 1972
 

Cat Stevens, 1972
 

Santana, 1974
 

Earth, Wind, & Fire, 1976
 

Tangerine Dream, 1976
 

The Beatles, Star Club, 1977
 

Earth, Wind, & Fire, 1993
 
Aa a bonus, here’s Tadanori’s cover for Miles Davis’ 1975 album Agharta.

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Pop goes Japan: Tadanori Yokoo’s amazing 60s animations

 
Speaking at their first press conference since their release from prison, members of the Punk collective Pussy Riot said they still wanted to “get rid” of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina claimed they were now more politically radicalized after their 21-month prison sentence than before, and were determined to campaign for the rights of all other prisoners. According to the Daily Telegraph, the activists told reporters:

“Our attitude to Vladimir Putin has not changed. We’d like to do what we said in our last action - we’d like him to go away…”

Tolokonnikova was referring to the song “Virgin Mary, Get Rid of Putin,” which Pussy Riot had performed at Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow prior to their arrest.

Vladimir Putin is a very closed, opaque chekist,” said Ms Tolokonnikova, using the Russian slang for a secret policeman.

“He is very much afraid. He builds walls around him that block out reality.

“Many of the things he said about Pussy Riot were so far from the truth, but it was clear he really believed them. I think he believes that Western countries are a threat, that it’s a big bad world out there where houses walk on chicken legs and there is a global masonic conspiracy. I don’t want to live in this terrifying fairytale.”

Both Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina named former tycoon and political dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky as the politican they would like to see remove Putin from office. Khodorkovsky was also unexpectedly released from prison last week under a Kremlin amnesty.

Mr Khodorkovsky is currently in Berlin, but has ruled out a career in politics. However, he is said to have “expressed determination to work to help other political prisoners, and he and Pussy Riot have exchanged open letters of support following their release.”

Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina mentioned Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, as a source of inspiration, in particular his book on Russian prisons gave them the strength to overcome their ordeal in gaol. 

The activists also “extended an olive branch” to the Russian Orthodox Church, saying “they believed its charitable work had an important role to play in their campaign to change Russia’s prison culture from one of violence and punishment to one of rehabilitation.”
 

 
Via the Daily Telegraph
 

 
Considering that this is the only Christmas song I can thing of that hopes you choke on your turkey, it’s probably better to post this one the day after Christmas….

In 1981, anarcho-punk heroes Crass had had about enough of the increasingly commercialized holiday season—not to mention the mass slaughter of turkeys each year—and decided to protest musically with a Casiotone medley of some of their best-loved numbers. The two-sided single, “Merry Crassmas,” was the result.

“Merry Crassmas” was credited to “Creative Recording and Sound Services.” On the picture sleeve, ringing Gee Vaucher’s distinctive art were these words:

COLD TURKEY ONE. VERY MERRY CRASSMAS. HERE’S AN AMAZING XMAS MEDLEY OF CRASS’S GREATEST HITS. SUPER FUN FOR ALL THE FAMILY. PLUS…SUPER FUN TIME COMPETITION THAT EVERYONE CAN JOIN IN. HERE’S WHAT YOU DO…IT’S EASY. JUST LIST, IN ORDER, THE TITLES OF THE EXCITING CRASS SONGS ON THIS RECORD. THE FIRST THREE CORRECT POSTCARDS TO BE RECEIVED WILL BE SENT THE FOLLOWING GREAT PRIZES…1ST PRIZE… BATHSALTS, 2ND PRIZE…ONE EXPLOITED SINGLE, 3RD PRIZE…TWO EXPLOITED SINGLES. HAVE FUN. SEND ENTRIES TO “CRASSMAS COMPETITION.” PO BOX 279. LONDON N22.

Please note that back in 1981, kids, “bath salts” actually meant bath salts like you would put in your bath—not a drug that will make you want to eat people’s faces off—a shitty prize, in other words. I like how third place gets two Exploited singles!

Side A:
Jingle Bells
Big A, Little A
Punk is Dead
Big Hands
Contaminational Power
I Ain’t Thick, It’s Just a Trick
Nagasaki Nightmare
While Shepherds Watched

Side B:
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Securicor
Darling
G’s Song
Banned from the Roxy
Tired
So what
Silent Night

One of only two Christmas records I own. True!
 

 
This compilation of some of the most famous scenes in cinema history subtitled so that the typical Ed Hardy devotee can understand them is awfully good—the only flaw is that it’s not longer! Chinatown, Gone with the Wind, and 2001: A Space Odyssey—now, they’re not just for high school graduates anymore!

Mike Lacher, who put this assemblage together, has also written a “bro” version of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road called—you guessed it—On the Bro’d. You can read some excerpts on Lacher’s website. It’s been so long since I’ve read On the Road that I can’t assess this translation adequately, but if it’s anything like “Classic Movies Subtitled for Bros,” it’s probably excellent. The only question would be if the gag runs dry after a few chapters.

In any case, the best bro-subtitling job in the montage is on Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, a movie I don’t think very much of, even if that one scene (the one in this clip) is admittedly pretty great.

You can set up Google so that the default language in the Settings is “Bork, bork, bork!” (Swedish chef), “Elmer Fudd,” “Hacker,” or “Pirate.” How long until “Bro” makes that list?
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Kerouac’s letter to Brando: “I’m praying that you’ll buy ‘On The Road’ and make a movie of it”
‘On the Road’: Jack Kerouac’s letter to his editor Malcolm Cowley goes on display

 
So, Peter Capaldi has finally arrived as the new Doctor Who, making a promising (though fleeting) appearance at the end of a rather indulgent (and dire) Christmas Doctor Who special. I do hope Mr. Capaldi brings the tired series back to some quality story-lines, and less of the puerile, narcissistic, self-referential navel-gazing of recent years. (Or, in the words of Elvis Presley, the series needs “A Little Less Conversation, A Little More Action.”) Capaldi certainly has the pedigree to deliver this, as he is already an Oscar-winning film director and writer, who picked up an Academy Award for his fabulous short Franz Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life in 1995.

Capaldi’s film features Franz Kafka (wonderfully played by Richard E. Grant) suffering a frustrating bout of writer’s block, as he works on the opening line to his story Metamorphosis:

“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.”

Brilliantly imagined, with superb supporting performances from Ken Stott, Elaine Collins and Phyllis Logan, this is a perfectly enjoyable winter treat.
 

 
Harry Houdini is one of my heroes, I’ve admired the Great Mystifier from early age watching him on old flickering, hand-cranked black and white film clips, as he escaped from chains and tightly-bound ropes in prison cells, and from deep-sunk, wooden boxes and padlocked milk churns. He was an inspiration to try my own imagined skills escaping wound clothes lines and knotted school ties, while my mischievous older brother timed me, remorselessly pummeled or tickled me, depending on his mood. The plan was to master handcuffs and I started collecting keys and quickly learned how to pick padlocks and door locks.

Unlike today, where information is merely a click away, I honed-up on my heroes from books that came via a mobile library every Friday, and learned to memorize favorite programs and films when screened on TV—this was much easier when there were only two channels on British television, and nothing other than the one children’s show Watch With Mother during the day, which explains why watching television was a major event, and its impressions have lasted longer than some of the shows viewed since. When the Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh movie of the great Houdini was screened one Christmas, it only convinced me further that the man born Erik Weisz in Budapest in 1874 was the world’s greatest performer, illusionist and escapologist. That Houdini often dared his life to entertain, and in later years was the scourge of fraudulent clairvoyants and mediums, only adds to his reputation.

Finding these pages “Exposing Houdini’s Tricks of Magic,” from Modern Mechanix November 1929, brought me back to that delight and child-like wonder that Houdini’s magic inspires. Here you’ll find how a sliding panel helped Houdini escape from a submerged wooden trunk, how he used a jack to escape from a buried coffin, and his use of false arms to trick an audience of his whereabouts.

The article was penned by R. D. ADAMS, the mechanic who helped Houdini construct some of his illusions:

Houdini’s famed “disappearance through a brick wall” was one of his most widely applauded stunts. That it mystified the public is putting it mildly. Just a short time ago a leading scientific journal announced that the magician made his disappearance by means of a trapdoor on one side of the wall and came up through a similar channel on the other. That was wholly impossible. A trapdoor, regardless of how cleverly it had been constructed, would have been detected by the investigating committee. And besides to mystify his audience still further and demonstrate that a trapdoor was not used, a large sheet of paper and sometimes a sheet of plate glass was placed upon the floor of the stage and the brick wall built upon it. Passing through glass into trapdoors and vice versa was not possible even for the great man of mystery.

Here is how Houdini operated: A dozen or more bricklayers in overalls appeared before the audience and built a bona fide brick wall seven or eight feet high extending from the footlights to almost the rear of the stage. When it was completed, Houdini was ready to “disappear”. After a few appropriate remarks, he stepped behind a small screen, something like a prompter’s box, which the bricklayers pushed slowly to the center of the wall. The bricklayers moved over to the other side and adjusted a similar screen there opposite the first one. “Here I am, here I am,” Houdini would shout and waving arms thrust through holes in the screen gave evidence of the fact.

Then the arms would disappear and Houdini would step forth from the screen on the other side of the wall.

Houdini disappeared through the wall only in the minds of the exceedingly gullible. As a matter of fact while the first screen, behind which he had stepped, was being pushed back against the wall, he leaped into a pair of blue jumpers and pulled a workman’s cap down far over his face. When the screen touched the wall, he was one of the bricklayers as far as the audience was concerned. He got behind the second screen disguised as a bricklayer. From this point he did his calling to the audience. Mechanical arms and hands, operated by a hidden rope leading to the wings, furnished the gestures which convinces Houdini was behind screen No. 1 instead of No. 2 completing the illusion.

Read the entire article at Modern Mechanix.
 

 

 
This is an interesting documentary on Houdini, though I must point out that the Great Mystifier was not the first man to fly an airplane in Australia, that was Colin Defries; and although J. Gordon Whitehead delivered several blows to Houdini’s abdomen, a later blow, delivered by an unknown assailant at the Prince of Wales hotel in Detroit was the blow that probably killed the great man—he was sitting reading a newspaper when he was punched, and Houdini reportedly said, “You shouldn’t have done that.”. This has led to the suggestion Houdini was murdered by supporters of the (fraudulent) clairvoyants he had successfully debunked.
 

 
Via Modern Mechanix

 
I recently stumbled upon some images by John Heartfield, and I haven’t been able to get them out of my head. I had never heard of Heartfield before, but the more I look into him, the more central and essential his work seems.

Despite the WASP-y name, Heartfield was German, and although he lived until 1968 his best-known work was during the Weimar era and also the years preceding World War II. He was born Helmut Herzfeld in 1891 and, in a detail that tells you everything you need to know about him, he adopted the English name John Heartfield (“Herzfeld”) in 1917 to protest the anti-British sentiment that was engulfing Germany at the time. His brother was born Wieland Herzfeld and for reasons I don’t fully understand decided to add an “e” to his name, making him Wieland Herzfelde. Heartfield and Herzfelde (along with the expressionist painter George Grosz) started an influential publishing company called the Malik Verlag—that also happened in 1917, the same year Helmut became Heartfield.
 

“Adolf, der Übermensch: Schluckt Gold und redet Blech,” 1932 (“Adolf the Superman: Swallows Gold and Spouts Tin”)
 
Heartfield designed book covers for Upton Sinclair and many other authors and also designed stage sets for Bertolt Brecht. As with his anti-nationalist protest, Heartfield’s connection to the names “Sinclair” and “Brecht” indicates much about his artistic and political sensibility. He was part of the Dada scene as well (check out the “Soeben erschienen” cover below). One thing I didn’t realize until I began researching Heartfield was how much more politicized the German Dada scene was, as opposed to the French variety. If Heartfield’s work is anything to go by (it may not be), the German Dadaists were far more engaged with political struggle.

The man led an interesting life. As a child he and his siblings were abandoned in the woods by their parents—eventually an uncle consented to raise them. In the spring of 1933, the Nazis raided his apartment, but he escaped through the window. Eventually he emigrated to Czechoslovakia on foot—that is, he walked to Czechoslovakia in order to escape the Nazis.
 

“Das ist das Heil, das sie bringen!” 1938 (“This is the cure that they bring!”)
 
That’s enough about Heartfield’s life—let’s talk about the work. I’m hesitant to say that Heartfield “invented” photomontage or anything like that, there were certainly people doing that sort of thing before World War I. But there is surely a case to be made that Heartfield was one of the pioneers of photomontage and arguably one of the very first to use it to such powerful effect. In many ways Heartfield might be the first photomontage artist to influence directly a lot of the counterculture movements of the Sixties and beyond. It’s pretty clear he occupies a very special position, and many of his images are decades ahead of their time. You can see Heartfield’s influence in culture jammers of all kinds, from Plunderphonics to every kind of sampleriffic noise collage and beyond.

If you look around the world today, especially on the Internet, you’re sure to see a Heartfield heir somewhere in the mix. Every time you see the head of Obama or George W. Bush pasted onto something else as a political comment, you’re seeing the Heartfield ethic in action. Adbusters has been doing Heartfield-type stuff for years now.

The question arises, Why does Heartfield’s work seem so rich and penetrating whereas (as an example) the Adbusters approach tends to pall after a while? It’s tempting to say that it’s because Heartfield was so willing to go for the jugular in his images, but I actually think it’s something like the opposite. Adbusters isn’t exactly known for pulling its punches either, you know? No, I think what makes Heartfield’s images work so well is actually a kind of delicacy, a perhaps-Continental sensibility that avoids hyperbole in favor of nuanced depth—even the crazy images of Hitler and Goering aren’t all that hyperbolic, they’re witty and they have one foot grounded in the regular world somehow. In a way there’s a lesson there. It doesn’t take artistry of craftsmanship to come up with a visual pun, the craft comes in the execution, the ability to create an image that may have blood, skeletons, misery, and suffering in it and yet not make you turn away.
 

 

 
Siouxsie and the Banshees appropriated one of Heartfield’s most famous images when they released a German translation of their song “Metal Postcard”—you can compare the two images above. The name of the Siouxsie single is “Mittageisen,” which is a pun. The German word Mittagessen means “lunch”—Mittageisen would translate as “midday iron.” The original Heartfield print is called “Hurrah, die Butter ist alle!” which means, “Hurrah, the butter is gone!”—it’s a reference to Hermann Goering’s famous 1936 speech in which he said, “Guns will make us powerful; butter will only make us fat.” Heartfield’s ingenious answer is to make a typical Aryan household in which there is only iron on the dinner table.
 
Here’s Siouxsie and the Banshees playing “Mittageisen” in 1979:

 
Here’s a playful documentary about Heartfield’s work:

 
After the jump, several more examples of Heartfield’s searing and sarcastic imagery….

 
In the 1800s and early 1900s, more people died at a younger age than today. Overcrowding and unsanitary conditions allowed disease to spread quickly and with devastating effects. This period, which the British term the Victorian era, also saw a high incidence of bizarre deaths, a selection of which have been listed by the BBC News Magazine:

1: Killed by a mouse

In 1875, at a factory in south London, England, a mouse dashed across a work table startling the employees. One worker made to grab the fleeing rodent, but the mouse escaped his grasp, and ran up the man’s sleeve, out through the neck of his shirt, and straight into the young man’s open mouth.

The Manchester Evening News reported:

“That a mouse can exist for a considerable time without much air has long been a popular belief and was unfortunately proved to be a fact in the present instance, for the mouse began to tear and bite inside the man’s throat and chest, and the result was that the unfortunate fellow died after a little time in horrible agony.”

2: Killed by a coffin

Henry Taylor was a pall bearer at London’s Kensal Green Cemetery. One day, whilst carrying out his duties at a funeral, Taylor tripped over a headstone and fell backwards on to the ground. As he fell, his fellow pall bearers let slip the coffin they were carrying, and it dropped directly on to the prone Taylor’s head.

The Illustrated Police News reported in November 1872:

“The greatest confusion was created amongst the mourners who witnessed the accident, and the widow of the person about to be buried nearly went into hysterics.”

 

 
3: Death by eating her own hair

The woman’s death was a mystery. Doctors could not fathom why, or even how, she had died. It was only after a post mortem that the cause of death was revealed. Inside the 30-year-old’s stomach was a solid lump of human hair, curled like a bird, and weighing two pounds.

The Liverpool Daily Post reported in 1869:

“This remarkable concretion had caused great thickening and ulceration of the stomach, and was the remote cause of her death. On inquiry, a sister stated that during the last twelve years she had known the deceased to be in the habit of eating her own hair.”

4: Killed as a zombie

At a funeral in rural Russia, the mourners were horrified when the coffin lid burst open, and the deceased climbed out.

The villagers ran in terror, locking themselves in their houses. The priest hid in the church. As the villagers armed themselves, the priest realized the deceased had most likely been in a coma, and had regained consciousness. One old woman failed to lock her door, and the suspected zombie staggered into her house. The woman’s screams alerted the villagers, who, now armed, were ready to dispatch the zombie. By the time the priest arrived to explain what had happened, the “zombie” was dead.

5: The man who laughed himself to death

Farmer Wesley Parsons was sharing a joke with friends in Laurel, Indiana, in 1893, when he began a fit of uncontrollable laughter. Nothing could stop Parsons horrifying attack of the giggles, and after two hours of non-stop laughing, he died of exhaustion.

Read more truly bizarre deaths here. Below, a collection of photographs of “The Victorian Book of the Dead.”
 

 
Via the BBC News Magazine