Month: January 2003

Lest you start to think that I’ve run out of Completely Different articles to fob off on you (or that I haven’t been writing anything lately), here’s a little something I call it “Death, Be Not Proud” from yesterday’s issue. Only parts of it are lies:

“Yeah. Now there’s three things we can do with your mum. We can bury her, burn her, or dump her.”

– Monty Python, “The Undertakers Sketch”

Ever think to yourself, “Gee, when Grandma’s gone, I sure hope we can have her dead body turned into a pretty sparkly diamond”?

Well now you can. Because, after just three short years of trial and error, a small Illinois-based company called Life Gem (www.lifegem.com) has recently perfected the process of extracting carbon from cremated remains in order to turn them into semi-precious stones. Greg Herro, the company’s chief executive officer (and one of only three employees), told The Chicago Tribune this past August that the whole thing is a “pretty wacky idea.…[but] that’s exactly the way revolutionary innovation often happens.”

Prices will vary, depending on the size and color of the gem, but they start at about $2,000 for a small quarter-carat diamond in shades of blue, red, yellow, and possibly green. The company promises “the same quality of the diamonds you would find at Tiffany’s”…except that these ones, of course, are made from the reprocessed ashes of the dead.

But still, this is apparently good news for some in the Penn State community. “There has always been an unfortunate stigma attached to turning loved ones into jewelry,” says chemistry professor Gordon Notmyrealname. “Which is bewildering, given all the pretty things you can make out of corpses. With any luck, though, Life Gem’s important first step in this field will open up the way for the public’s acceptance of our own work here at the University.”

Professor Notmyrealname’s work consists largely, he says, of turning dead people into furniture.

“Chairs, desk lamps, leather recliners — whatever you need,” he says. “Dead people make lovely furniture. I won’t lie, it’s a complicated process, and right now it’s still very much in the experimental stage — we’ve had some trouble controlling the smell — but I’m confident that by this time next year we’ll be able to start mass-producing our furniture, and perhaps eventually other cadaver-derived merchandise as well.”

The sale of such merchandise, Notmyrealname says, could be extremely beneficial to Penn State in times of severe economic difficulty or statewide budget cutbacks. “It could also help me finally move out of my parents’ basement,” he adds. “Which, I’ve got to tell you, by this point would be really nice.”

But not everyone at Penn State is so enamored with the use of dead things or particularly eager to see the University start digging up bodies in order to cash in on this largely untapped market.

“I find it troubling,” says USG Senator Bubbles the Clown, “that so much time and effort is being spent on turning dead people into furniture when there are plenty of living people perfectly happy to do the job for them. Balloon animal?”

Although an avowed supporter of diversity on campus, Bubbles believes that the needs of the living should come before the needs of the dead. “Call me crazy, but that’s just how I was raised,” he says. He suggests first allowing students the opportunity to act as furniture before looking for potentially costly alternatives presently rotting in the grave.

“Admittedly I don’t know much about death or dying,” he adds, putting down his seltzer bottle for a moment, “and most of what I do know comes from watching Weekend at Bernie’s. But still, I have to believe the University’s interests would be better served by letting students fulfill our furniture needs. Now are you sure I can’t interest you in a balloon animal? How about a dog?”

The University has recently put all dead-body and dead body-related research on hold, pending further discussion. When reached for comment, Notmyrealname’s parents said simply, “Oh great. Now he’ll never move out of the damn basement!”

I’ve temporarily put my “Trousers Talk” column on hiatus, having more or less run out of ideas. If and when it returns, I may start reposting it here again, for the sake of easy filler if nothing else. In the meantime, articles from the past three semesters are available for your reading pleasure, should you be so inclined. Some issues are better than others, obviously, but I’d like to think some of it is at least a little funny.

Frankly, though, it’s all a bit zany — you know a bit madcap funster. I don’t fully understand it myself, but the kids seem to like it…

I half thought I was accidentally leaving an hour early from work today. I’m not used to the sun still being up when I leave. Of course, I’m also not used to it being this damn cold. When’s that going to change?

I know at least one or two former members of the Penn State Monty Python Society read this website (and I certainly talk about the group often enough), so I thought I’d take the opportunity to let you know that the website has, at long last, finally been updated. As I wrote in last night’s issue of Completely Different, you’ll find:

I don’t know how interesting any of this would be to outsiders, but I guess I could say pretty much the same thing about this weblog.