Day: April 22, 2006

From Warren Ellis — LA Woman Hospitalized With Bubonic Plague:

A woman was hospitalized earlier this month with bubonic plague, the first confirmed human case in Los Angeles County in more than two decades, health officials said Tuesday.

I’m not sure what I find most disturbing here. That a woman was hospitalized with the plague… That “in more than two decades” means that some people were contracting the plague in Los Angeles during ’70s or ’80s… Or that the ’70s and ’80s actually were twenty years ago…

You know, it probably is the whole woman getting the plague thing.

Although I do suddenly have this image of a Monty Python “Bring out your dead”-type scene set to a Flock of Seagulls and Duran Duran soundtrack.

Interesting. The Mel Brooks Collection does contain Robin Hood: Men in Tights, but it doesn’t contain Spaceballs or Life Stinks. I mean, I can understand why the set doesn’t include Dracula: Dead and Loving It*, but it is a little odd that it skips those two earlier films — especially since they’re the only other two films Brooks has ever directed. Maybe securing the rights to those two was a problem.

* It’s godawful. I attended a Monty Python Society meeting once, shortly after graduation, where the then president had decided to screen the film. I got there, saw what they were going to watch, and walked right back out the door.