Before the internet allowed us to watch footage of people being murdered for free, any aspiring video-age Percival had to search high and low for quality snuff. There was no relic so highly prized as the Grail of gross, Faces of Death. Often shelved in the back rooms of those pre-Blockbuster video stores located in strip malls, grocery stores and along lonely roadsides, this mondo masterpiece was spoken of by those who had seen it in a hushed, foreboding tone reminiscent of Large Marge’s admonition to the hitchhiking Pee-Wee. A dark fate surely awaited anyone brave enough to press play. However, aside from the rather pedestrian suicides, autopsies, and slightly more elevated baby seal clubbing, the most fondly remembered scenes – everything from the eye -bleeding electrocution to that cute grizzly nibbling on a little foie gras d’ humain – were, alas, fake. In hindsight, that the film was narrated by one “Dr. Francis B. Gross” should have been a red flag regarding its legitimacy. But my teenage self really wanted to believe that someone had actually shot footage of young women (surprisingly buxom, considering the supposed Third World trappings) sacrificing a willing man, eating his flesh and engaging in an orgy where the corpse’s blood proved a far better lubricant than K-Y Jelly ever could. I’d be lying if I said that along with being repulsed, I also wasn’t kind of turned on. In his fascinating, but ultimately frustrating new book, Wake Forest professor Eric G. Wilson dives into this fecund topic of morbid curiosity. It’s the sort of high concept that will intrigue readers before they even read the flap. After all, the title says it all:  Everyone Loves a Train Wreck: Why We Can’t Look Away. Wilson gets right to the heart...

.500. For any fan of baseball’s Pittsburgh Pirates, this number now has more significance than Barry Bonds’ home run record, DiMaggio’s hit streak or Cal Ripken’s consecutive games played. When I wrote the following blogumn in March, it looked like the chances of  the Pirates  finally ending this season with as many wins as losses after a record 18 consecutive years of failing were about as good as Newt Gingrich winning the Republican nomination. Then a funny thing happened: the Pirates started winning. And they’ve kept winning with as much regularity as they’ve been losing. And now the wins are starting to outnumber the losses. We’re about halfway through the season and if the Pirates keep going, this blogumn will be forever outdated. Never before have I ever wanted my writing to be so wrong... Originally published 03/25/11 How do the Pittsburgh Pirates compare with other infamous losers of history? On Thursday, April 7th, Major League Baseball’s Pittsburgh Pirates will take to the field of PNC Park to play the Colorado Rockies. If all goes as planned (and there is little reason to doubt that it won’t) sometime in early October, the Pirates will finish their 19th consecutive losing season. The only records that will be broken will be their own: In 2009, their 17th  losing season tied them with the Philadelphia Phillies for the longest streak of consecutive losing seasons in North American sports history. And last year, the Pittsburgh Pirates celebrated their final descent to the bottommost throne in Loserdom’s decaying garbage heap with the most losses (105) in their 123 year existence. In terms of embarrassment, ignominy and defeat, the Pittsburgh Pirates are now only competing with themselves. Of course many people will argue that Pirates’ fans really have no right to complain....

On the Origins of Hell House: The Awakening:  A Special Multi-Part Fierce Anticipation Event By Ryan Dixon Click Here for Part I Click Here for Part II The phone rang in my dorm room during the dawning hours of a frigid Monday morning in January 1999. Already awake and blearily trying to memorize the opening prologue of Shakespeare’s Henry V that I had to perform for my acting class in just a few hours, I answered it. On the Contrary’s Joe Rusin was on the other line. One of the charter members of our close-nit group of friends, Joe was two years younger than me and should have been getting ready for school. “Emily’s in the hospital,” he said. “She tried to kill herself.” After hanging up, I tossed the Shakespeare aside, put on my overcoat and stumbled through the thickening layer of snow accumulating on Carnegie Mellon’s campus, wondering… What should I do? My initial response was to call my parents and have them pick me up so I could visit Emily in the hospital. This is what a best friend would do. This is what an aspiring boyfriend would do. But was I either of those things anymore? I had gotten used to repressing my romantic longings for Emily. I satisfied myself with our strong friendship, but since that October night at Hell House, she and I had barely communicated. Our epically long IM sessions had gone the way of the dodo. Emails were returned, not within minutes or hours, but days. Calls were non-existent. In the month and a half between our Hell House adventure and Christmas break, I threw myself fully into school work and made an effort to bond with my classmates so I could avoid thinking about Emily....

An interesting thing happened at church the other day. For the first time ever, I almost completely disagreed with a sermon. It started off with a moral-lesson story from the reverend about how she decided to treat herself to a concert in another city, because she “worked hard and deserved it.” After finding cheap airfare and arranging to stay with friends, the concert was canceled, which she took as a a sign that she had been sinfully overindulgent. I was stunned. 1) This seemed like a perfectly reasonable expense to me for a working mother and pastor who probably doesn’t do much for herself. And 2) standing in an aisle with other mothers who were trying to calm fussy babies while our partners listened to the sermon, I thought it was a dangerous message to send to moms who already overextend themselves in every aspect of their lives save for themselves. Just once, I would like to hear a sermon that urged mothers to take some time for themselves. Seriously, I’ve been to a lot of church services in my day, and I’ve never heard any aimed at overextended mothers, though I imagine that they’re a high percentage of most congregations. This message was then followed by a sermon on prioritizing your money, in which it was suggested with a straight face that we make giving offerings and/or tithing our first priority above budgeting and creating a rainy day fund. Another piece of dangerous advice in my opinion and so self-serving on the church’s part that it made it hard for me to listen to the rest of the very good points in the sermon about creating a budget (which we totally need to do). Having two week’s beforehand gone to another United Methodist...