Once upon a time, a bridegroom jokingly recited his marriage vows over a skeletal finger protruding from the earth. After placing his ring on the bone, his mirth turned to horror when a grasping hand burst forth, followed by a corpse in a tattered shroud, her dead eyes staring as she proclaimed, "My husband".
This chilling Jewish folk tale hails from a cycle of stories about the great 16th-century mystic, Rabbi Isaac Luria of Safed, in what is now northern Israel, said Howard Schwartz, a top Jewish folklorist and professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.
It also apparently inspired Tim Burton's charmingly ghoulish animated film, "Corpse Bride". Yes, the film features a bridegroom who accidentally weds a cadaver. But the feature eschews the folk tale's grotesquerie for romanticized gloom and Halloweeny fun - a trademark of Burton fare such as "Edward Scissorhands" and "The Nightmare Before Christmas."
Learn more about Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, featuring the voices of Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, here, or view the trailer here.
# It fits easily in your back pocket or purse.
We're getting close to electronic paper here, people. Get your panties in a bunch. Come on. We're waiting. OK. Good.
Some call it industrial mountaineering or technical rope access, but Virgin.net calls it by the more technical term: "Spiderman Climbing." Granted, the PowerQuick does give you superhero-like abilities. It motors around 320 lbs. up the side of a building at speeds of one yard per second. It's battery-powered, and one charge can take you to the top of the Statue of Liberty—five times. Originally developed for DARPA, there are now two versions of the Powerquick. One is for commercial purposes (yawn!), and the other takes solid fuel and is intended for hostage rescue and urban warfare. Unintended third use: Circumventing the office elevator bank.
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