Serial Killer Lions

August 31, 2011 – When an animal kills and eats a human, we don’t blame it for acting according to the dictates of its nature...yet we still get a heavily armed group together, chase it down, and kill it. That’s because human beings are harboring a secret. We’re damned tasty, and we don’t want that to get out in the animal world. Once a predator is in on that secret, it’ll try to take down as many of us as it can. And with all the problems in the world, we don't want to add serial killer animals to the mix.

You only have to look as far as the three taxidermied serial killer lions in the Field Museum, a natural history museum in Chicago, to see that the above isn’t an overreaction. That’s right. Serial killer lions. I’m going to be using the word terrifying a lot in this article.

Somehow the Windy City ended up with the stuffed carcasses of three of the most notorious multiple man-eaters on the books. The most famous of the trinity are the Lions of Tsavo (also called the Man-Eaters of Tsavo), a pair of maneless male lions that, working together in terrifying concert, killed somewhere around 100 people in Eastern Africa in 1898 and then, in 1996, had a movie made about them starring Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas called The Ghost and the Darkness. Yup, those lions.

It happened while the British East Africa Company was building the Uganda Railway, which linked Mombasa, Kenya, to Kampala, Uganda. During the construction of a bridge over the Tsavo River in Kenya, a pair of lions, each measuring almost ten feet long from tooth to tail, began picking off the railway workers.

For months, the workers lived in terror, waiting for their turn to be hunted down and eaten by this feline equivalent of Henry Lee Lucas and Otis Toole. They built fences, but the lions penetrated them. They installed traps, but the lions avoided them. Finally, at the beginning of December, almost ten months after the first victim, the man in charge of the operation, a Lt. Col. John Henry Patterson, took one out with a rifle after multiple shots. Three weeks later, he got its partner in crime after a terrifying battle that ended with him up a tree and it full of ragged bullet holes.

After some exploration, Patterson found a cave that he deemed to be the den of the lions due to the fact that the floor was covered with human bones, although some modern wet blankets have proffered that it might instead have been an aboriginal burial ground.

Patterson later wrote a book about the entire experience, estimating the victims at somewhere around 135. Later, more wet blankets, after conducting scientific studies of the carcasses have tried to knock the number eaten (though not killed) down to a less spine-chilling number, but could only get it as low as 35. Spine still chilled.

As to the lions themselves, Patterson did what any self-respecting adventurous Brit in a safari helmet would have done at the time. He turned the pair into rugs and held onto the skulls as mementos. In the 1920s, he sold the skins and skulls to the Field Museum, who restored and stuffed the skins for display, where they’ve remained to this day. You can buy plush versions of the cuddly killers in the museum gift shop.

The Lions of Tsavo are located on the main floor of the museum in a glass-fronted diorama in the impressive mammals section. The disembodied skulls of the lions lay on the ground at their feet.

The other serial killer lion that the Field Museum boasts has been dubbed the Man-Eater of Mfuwe. This guy’s located on the bottom level of the museum, outside of the Egyptian section. Like the Lions of Tsavo, it’s also a maneless species of male lion. At 10’6” long and 5’ tall, it’s the largest man-eating lion that we [care to] know about, and even though its victim count is lower, in some ways, its story is just as terrifying.

Partly, it’s because its reign of terror occurred recently, in 1991, this time in a village in Zambia, which is also in Eastern Africa. Over a two month period, the enormous beast killed at least six people in the village. Here’s the rest of the terrifying bit. After its last kill, it returned to the crime scene and grabbed a bag of clothes from the victim’s house for a souvenir. It then proceeded to walk brazenly walk down the streets of the village in broad daylight, carrying the satchel in its mouth as if lording it over the people that their lives were in his jaws. The boldness of the lion made the people think it was a supernatural creature.

Truth is, the lion just knew the law. Hunting in Zambia is restricted to safaris for economic reasons, so there was nothing the residents could do but sabotage their own Yelp restaurant rating and hide in their homes, hoping the lion filled up on their neighbors before it got to them.

Fortunately, it was later shot by Wayne Hosek, a safari hunter who had grown up in Chicago looking in awe at the Lions of Tsavo in the Field Museum. He camped out with a group for some three weeks, waiting for a glimpse of the man-eater and, after killing it, donated the beast to the museum, where they display it with a prop laundry bag. Once people find out you like serial killer lions, you’ll get them every Christmas.

Since that time, the museum has funded various research expeditions in the Tsavo region to study its lions. There is apparently tons we don’t know about them. Especially the serial killer members of the species. Nobody knows why these random brutes start killing and eating humans. Tons of ideas are proffered, of course, everything from scarcity of regular food sources to the Dr. Loomis theory of “pure and simple evil,” but nobody really knows.

One day, I’ll have to do an entire post on the Field Museum, which is full of some pretty cool stuff, including Sue, the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton ever found, and Bushman, a taxidermied gorilla that was one of Chicago’s most famous residents in the mid-1900s. However, I’m not sure any of it tops their three terrifying serial killers.

I’m also not sure why every single Chicago team mascot isn’t a lion.

Mouth of Truth and St. Valentine’s Skull

Supremely confident.

August 23, 2011 — A stone face that bites the hands off liars. The skull of the man responsible for annual obligations of heart-shaped boxes of chocolate. All that’s missing for a party is a kiddie pool full of tequila, a salt shaker the size of a fire hydrant, and the U.S. women’s beach volleyball team dressed in Yo Gabba Gabba costumes.

Rome’s Santa Maria in Cosmedin isn’t anywhere near the list of Rome’s most beautiful churches. Its most notable architectural feature is a tall, squarish bell tower that is designed in such a way that it almost apologizes for its own existence. Inside, the church is just as plain. Granted, not Baptist church plain, but still certainly pretty simple according to Rome standards.

Of course, the church has some impressive history. It dates back to the 6th century at a location that goes even further back in the record. But, again, this is Rome, and being ancient is a commonality shared by everything in the city, from palaces to pavestones.

However, Santa Maria in Cosmedin has on display two artifacts that make it worth skipping every other church that claims mere breathtaking beauty, the Bocca della Verita and the skull of St. Valentine.

Bocca della Verita is Italian for Mouth of Truth, and it’s a large marble disk set on its edge with the age-worn image of an ancient, terrifying bearded face with long hair and horns carved into it. Its most noticeable features are the five holes set in the eyes, nostrils, and mouth of the face. Of those dark cavities, it’s the latter that has made the artifact famous and is the reason why it’s not called the Face of Truth.

The legend goes that if you stick your hand inside its ominous-looking mouth and then tell a lie, the mouth will bite it off. You know, that whole scene from Roman Holiday.

The two-millennia-old disc is pretty massive, with a diameter of almost six feet and a thickness of seven inches. It also weighs more than a ton, so you’re probably in more danger of it smashing you into two-dimensionality than having it orally amputate you, even if you’re somebody like Pinocchio or Joe Isuzu.

Experts are pretty sure that this strange stone artifact wasn’t originally designed as an amputation device, but still aren’t quite sure what it is. There’s a chance it could have been part of a fountain, but since there’s no obvious signs of water erosion, most think it was a drain cover that we tourists are sticking our hands into. Makes one wonder how future generations will interpret the cryptic messages punched into our manholes. Nice turn of phrase.

The Mouth of Truth has sat outside of Santa Maria in Cosmedin since the 1600s. You access it today by a little portico that is gated and locked during outside of its opening times. Once there, you just get in line, throw a Euro or so in a box, kick the pile of severed hands out of the way, shove your own digits into the appropriate hole, and then smile or grimace depending on the type of picture you want. We visited right when it opened, and there were about a dozen people waiting for their chance at handicapped parking tags. The line went fast, though, since the giant disc is just a photo-op and not something you’re really supposed to commune with.

After feeding the Mouth of Truth, many of the people in line just left, quickly exiting through the underwhelming church for the next stop on their itinerary. That’s a mistake, though, because just inside the door, in a less than prominent location at the side of the church, is a small glass box containing a beflowered skull that held all the thoughts of St. Valentine himself, if you believe the label affixed to its forehead.

That’s right, the skull of the guy who saved February from being dedicated to mere groundhogs and U.S. Presidents is a holy relic of Santa Maria in Cosmedin. Possibly.

Apparently, there’s a lot of controversy over the existence and identity of St. Valentine, which is pretty awkward considering that his bones have been spread to various churches across the globe. Enough in fact, that were you to try to re-assemble his skeleton, you would probably end up with about half a dozen, which is awesome if you’re putting together a Halloween chorus line, not so awesome if you’re trying to tout possession of the remains of one of the most famous saints in the hood.

Apparently, there were multiple St. Valentines and thousands of years’ worth of opportunity to mislay or mislabel any of their bones. Nevertheless, if Google is the general consensus, it’s Rome that is the officially recognized place where you can stare into the eye sockets of St. Valentine. And, if one day bonologists prove otherwise, it’s still an ancient, venerated skull to gawk at. That’s one of the few things I asked out of life when I entered this world.

In the end, Santa Maria in Cosmedin is an excellent example of the Christian precept that it doesn’t matter what’s on the outside, it only matters how much cool stuff you’ve got. Stone faces to the left of you, skulls to the right. Stuck in the middle with God. Amen.

Gillette Castle

August 17, 2011 — In London, you'll find Sherlock Holmes in a modest two-bedroom flat at 221B Baker Street. In the States, you'll find him in an elaborate castle on a secluded hill in Connecticut. A strange castle that looks like an accretion of coral from far away and like something out of The Flintstones from up close.

It’s called Gillette Castle, and it was the mansion home of stage actor William Gillette, who more than anybody other than Arthur Conan Doyle himself really molded the popular perception of the famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes.

Gillette was born in 1853 in Hartford, Connecticut. He was an actor from the start, but it wasn’t until he got permission from Doyle to adapt Holmes to the stage that his fame really took off. He ended up playing Holmes some 1,300 times over the course of his career, including one movie in 1916.

Gillette is credited with creating the deerstalker hat, cloak, and curved pipe look of Holmes by which we identify the detective even today, after numerous adaptations have tried their own hand at redefining the character. In the case of the curved pipe, it’s surmised that this affectation was so that people could better see his face on stage. Gillette even coined the “Elementary” catch phrase.

A career of adapting, producing, and playing Sherlock Holmes all ended up making Gillette very rich and, of course, when you’re rich, you build a castle. That’s always in the contract that the wealthy sign with the devil. In 1914, Gillette chose a spot on one of the hills known as the Seven Sisters right on the Connecticut River. In fact, his own name for the 184-acre estate was the Seventh Sister. Over the course of the next five years, Gillette Castle was built according to a design by Gillette, who apparently liked to reinvent more than just popular literary characters.

Today, the crazy conglomerate castle is run by the state and is part of Gillette Castle State Park at 67 River Rd. in East Haddam. It has a magnificent view of the river, and you can ramble through the edifice during the non-winter months (the park itself is open year-round).

The inside is at stark contrast to the weird outside, and seems quite warm and comfortable. Also somewhat masculine. Gillette’s wife died in 1888, long before even the conception of the castle, and he never remarried. Nevertheless, the inside still has its quirks.

As far as rich eccentricities go, Gillette’s were mild. No bottles of urine or pajama uniforms. Instead, he designed intricate and unique locks for each of the 47 doors in the 24-room mansion, many of which span the entire width and length of the door and each one a work of art in itself. He also had mirrors installed so that he could see most of the interior of the house from his room, used red mortar between the interior stones (“for dramatic effect” one of the staff told me), and covered the walls with fiber mats intended for floor use. He also designed a couple pieces of the furniture so that they slid on wooden tracks and made sure to include a secret set of stairs in his study so that he could avoid visitors when he wished.

Finally, he also owned a small train and installed three miles of track on the outside grounds so that he could ride around like the father from Silver Spoons. Today, you can see one of his engines on display in the visitor center.

The house also contains his art gallery and library, the former of which currently includes drawings of him in various stage roles. There’s also a small exhibit about his Japanese valet, who was the brother of the mayor of Tokyo, the one, according to a placard there, who gave D.C. its cherry trees.

Gillette continued to play Holmes across the world until his death in 1937, so I’m not sure how much time he actually spent in the castle in those 18 years. Moriarty’s not the type of foe to let a man sit back and enjoy a placid life, after all.

Yeah, I’m in a hurry and didn’t know how to end this one.

"The Picture of Dorian Gray"

August 10, 2011 — It's a door-sized oil painting that depicts ultimate depravity, and I would love to hang it prominently on my living room wall. Does that make me a bad person? Does it help if that ultimate depravity is only ultimate depravity as deemed appropriate for a 1940s movie audience?

The portrait is called The Picture of Dorian Gray, and it hangs, more like looms, in the Art Institute of Chicago at 111 South Michigan Avenue. However, its story begins in Hollywood, about 65 years ago. I feel like I should have Robert Osborne guest-write the next few paragraphs, but here goes.

MGM was producing a film version of Oscar Wilde’s book, The Picture of Dorian Gray, the story of a man consumed by debauchery, yet who never shows any physical effect of his sin or age because it’s all been transferred to a portrait of himself that he keeps hidden. The studio had in place all of what are usually the most important elements of a film. They had a director, Albert Lewin. They had a screenplay, written by the director. They had a cast, including George Sanders, Donna Reed, Angela Lansbury, and Hurd Hatfield as Dorian Gray himself. But in the unique case of this particular story, the most important piece of the production was the titular painting.

 

The painting had to be an extraordinary one. After all, the entire film hangs on the notion that the corruptions that this painting undergoes will shock the audience…a feat that had to be accomplished in a pre-Night of the Living Dead world. In other words, in an era where you couldn’t just be literal with the depravity.

They commissioned a Chicago-based artist by the name of Ivan Albright (1897-1983), who was known for his macabre style. Ivan Albright was everything I want anybody to be…talented and kooky. His paintings were detailed to the point of texture due to the fact that they often took him years to finish, as well as the fact that he regularly used a brush with only a single bristle, spending hours and hours on just postage stamp-sized areas of his paintings. He also carved his own frames, mixed his own paints, built his own reference models, and he was obsessed by the face in the Shroud of Turin. It is said (by Wikipedia) that he painted his studio black and wore black while he painted to reduce glare.

Albright’s main themes were the synonyms death and time and, had he not been paid to paint The Picture of Dorian Gray, his muse would probably have forced him to do so at some other point in his career. He once said that everything had one thing in common: decay, and his works show that. Some attribute his obsession with the grim to his time in WWI when he was charged with sketching war wounds for purposes of documentation, but I think there are more compelling, less easily summarized avenues to darkness. Besides, his subjects are rarely maimed. More like moldering.

 

Regardless of how it happened, it’s at least certain that his style is so unique that to see just one of his works is to be able to recognize his style anywhere else from 20 paces and facing the wrong direction.

Back to The Picture of Dorian Gray: The Movie, the 1945 flick is an able enough effort for its time, if a bit too slow and reserved. Of course, any movie that includes even one line of Oscar Wilde’s exquisite dialogue will be worth its celluloid. However, at the same time, hearing Wilde’s dialogue spoken is almost always an inferior experience to reading it, like watching somebody else drink a glass of wine instead of drinking it yourself, at your own pace of enjoyment. Just too many nuances to butterfly net in situ, too many points where you need to crack up laughing before you can allow it to resume.

Still, the star of the movie is without a doubt Albright’s massive piece. In the movie, which is filmed in black and white, the painting is shown rarely and almost always in livid, lurid color, from when it’s the mere image of a handsome young man with his pet Egyptian cat god (actually painted by Henrique Medina) to the final decrepit piece, the transmographied subject matter of which oozes more than the wet paint of its composition. Incidentally, Albright might have had some help from his twin brother, who was also a painter, if the LIFE photo here is any indication, which is also a great pic for showing the model that helped him paint the astonishing image.

 

Of course, once the movie was done filming, the painting was no mere prop to get trashed in a dumpster or warehoused like some mere costume or piece of furniture. Eventually, the Albright painting became a part of the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, near Albright’s home turf, where it glowers down at visitors to this day with the immortality of Dorian Gray himself, facing Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks (1942) and just a room over from Grant Wood’s American Gothic (1930).

And it’s been on my list to see for 10 years, since the first time I saw the film and jumped on the Internet for the instant gratification of learning that it was a real work on public display in a real museum. Finally, a few weeks ago I was able to gratify the instant gratification itself.

And, man, it’s worth it. I mean, the Internet’s great for seeing things, but it’s horrible at scale, as well as for physically wrapping your arms around something while the security guard tries to pry you off with a velvet rope stanchion. Dorian Gray is glorious in its grisliness and hung so that most of it towers over your simple, cowardly morality.

Most fascinating, not an actual bit of depravity can be found upon its considerable 85x42-inch surface, yet it suggests so much more than if the artist had incarnated every horrible thing imaginable onto the canvas. I mean, if you asked me why I thought it was disturbing, there’s not a single square inch that I can point to. No severed body parts. No children in peril. No slathering monster multi-headed with the visages of all the Cusack siblings. Just a twisted old man with a bleeding hand, clothed in, and backdropped by, tatters and rags, standing beside a cat statue.

In the film, the painting is stabbed at the end in the heart, but I didn’t see any rents or repairs. After rewatching the film, it’s probably just a trick of editing. Which is too bad. A knife wound would have made it so much more an artifact of the film and contributed to the overall miasma of the piece.

If there’s an ocular state more narrow than tunnel vision, I had it as I rushed through the museum to its American Art wing, past works of fine art and culture thousands of year old, to experience the culmination of ten years of, well, random and casual thought over whether I’d ever get to see it. However, once my paintlust was satiated, I settled down, shook hands and apologized to the aforementioned security guard, and took in more of Albright’s work. Apparently, the museum has quite a large collection of it, but only two other paintings besides Dorian Gray were on view when I visited.

The second piece was called That Which I Should Have Done I Did Not Do (The Door), which was painted over the entire course of the 1930s. It was slightly taller and thinner than Dorian Gray and, according to the placard beside it, was considered by Albright to be his paramount work. The large painting depicts a door, a wreath, and a female hand.

Again, recounting the subject matter does exactly nothing to convey the decrepit feel and subtle terror of the feel of this painting, which has so much of the unknown about it. If Dorian Gray made me want to stand under a waterfall of razorblades, The Door made me want to stick my eyeballs in one of those golf ball washer contraptions (I loved it that much).

The other painting, the fantastic Into the World There Came a Soul Called Ida, predated Dorian Gray by more than a decade, is large and square, and depicts a seated woman with a hand mirror, time-ravaged, haggard, sad and more frightening than any nightmare I’ve had in recent memory. I finally understand the Zeppelin lyric about big-legged women not having souls.

And, now that I’ve seen The Picture of Dorian Gray, I can also finally lay that long-held fascination to rest. Now, if the Royal London Hospital will only let me into its inner recesses to see the Elephant Man’s bones.