Bodies, Bodies Everywhere

The Broad Street Review has a new piece about Bodies… The Exhibition, and if you’re wondering if the author has confused Body Worlds with the knock-off, you’re in luck: It appears he has.

You’ll also no doubt note there is a reference to the Nazis in the second paragraph. This is a journal of arts and culture, after all! “It did not reassure me that the show’s promoter is a German. Displaying corpses in amusing poses, with witty props and paraphernalia, put me in mind of Nazi lampshades made out of human skin.” Yeah, way to not hold that exhibition, Franklin Institute. (If you’re wondering, Body Worlds was run by a German; Bodies… The Exhibition was run by Premier Exhibitions, Inc., an Atlanta-based company.

Dalí Exhibit A Rousing Success!

So that King Tut exhibit should be getting an article around this time next year.

Update: In a similar fashion, here’s a story from Action News about Head-On that was on the website’s front page. Come on, people.

Debating The Ethics Of ‘Body Worlds’ [The Evening Bulletin]
Tutankhamun And The Golden Age Of The Pharaohs [Franklin Institute]

Blogicized: Them Thar Internets, They Should Be Free

• I’ve been trying to write something about “Net Neutrality” that doesn’t go over or underboard, and I haven’t been able to, so here’s a roundup of why it’s important, blah, blah, blah, you get the idea. [MyDD]

• Just over 600,000 people wanted to see bodies without skin posed in various athletic and everyday situations. Man, we’re a bunch of sickos, aren’t we? [Metroblogging Philadelphia]

• Apparently, there’s some sort of conference about how to defend those accused of white-collar crime in Philadelphia in early May. This is bad, or something. [Daily Rant]

Blogicized: Water, Water Everywhere

• Turns out that waterless urinals in a top-secret local building that may or may not be in University City North Philly haven’t killed anyone. And they won the building an award. But, y’know, we gotta put useless pipes in the Comcast Center. In case. [Changing Skyline]

• Sam Alito will be here on July 4 to celebrate freedom. Word on the street is they’ll be using the Rick Santorum impersonator to impersonate Sam Alito, too. [All Spin Zone]

• We also hear that JGT will be celebrating the end of Body Worlds by hosting a quizzo at the Planetarium and then shedding his skin and getting in some weird pose. [Johnny Goodtimes]

• Liz Spikol introduces us to the Medication Debate Shuffle, which will soon be tearing up the clubs. [The Trouble With Spikol]

Six feet above and filled with silicon

By now you’ve either heard of or been to Body Worlds, the creepy-but-educational exhibit of actual dead human bodies currently showing at the Franklin Institute.

And, you know, after seeing the exhibit (or the photo at left), I’m sure you thought about it, decided it was either really neat or really weird (or both), and moved on. But if you were either 19-year-old Chrissy Jenks or 31-year-old Shawn Petri, you would look at the bodies and go, “Sign me up!”

Yes, two local residents (one originally from Berks County and the other from Montco, so they’re “local” in the NBC 10 dictionary) have signed up to have their bodies plastinated after death. In Plastination, which was invented by Dr. Gunther von Hagens, the bodily fluids are replaced with silicon, preserving it. The two bodies will be used for research or in a display like the one currently at the Franklin Institute.

That’s about it, although 6,500 people have signed up for this process since the early 1980s, so Petri and Jenks have to get in line, I suppose. The best part of the entire press release is this:

Both body donors are proceeding with plans to inform their entire families about their wishes, change their living wills, and possibly even participate in the body donor program’s annual meeting with Dr. von Hagens in Heidelberg, Germany.

“Excuse me, Aunt Valerie? Just so you know, after I die, my body is going to be filled with silicon and possibly put on display at a museum or an institute. And also perhaps used in an advertisement for said display. Just thought you’d like to know.”

Full release after the jump.

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