Top 5 Museums a Zombie Would Love

The Walking Dead had record-breaking ratings for its premiere on Sunday. Zombies are hot. Zombies are everywhere. But when they're done face-eating, what do zombies do for entertainment?

Here are the top 5 museums a zombie would love:

1. Indiana Medical History Museum: The room inside an old insane asylum filled with brains in jars is like a cannibal candy shop.

2. Philadelphia's Mutter Museum: Einstein's braaaain is here, in 20-micron-thick slices.

3. Cornell's Wilder Brain Collection: The smorgasbord of juicy lobes includes doctors, suffragists and serial killers.

4. National Zoo: Zombie pets will lip-smack at the pickled brains, from pygmy hippos to blue whales, white-tailed deer to red foxes.

5. Living Dead Museum: This one's for reanimated corpses with a sense of humor. It's set in the house where Night of the Living Dead was filmed and is stuffed with rotting legs, eyeball-less faces and other movie props. 

Photo from jaded-ink

The King's Last Stand

I've written about Indianapolis' offbeat attractions before: the rejection letters at the Kurt Vonnegut Library and brains in jars at the Indiana Medical History Museum. Add the Elvis marker to the list.

Elvis Presley played his last-ever concert in Indy. It happened 37 years ago almost to the day, on June 26, 1977. The city put up a plaque to mark the spot, and buried the King's scarf underneath in tribute. The neckwear was part of his outfit for that final show, along with a gold and white jumpsuit.

Alas, critics panned Elvis' performance as sloppy and lethargic. Seven weeks later, on August 16, he was found dead on his bathroom floor.

National Pie Day: 4 Things to Know

Today is a big one on the pie calendar. It's National Pie Day, as decreed by the American Pie Council. That means sweet contests and free slices around the country. Random info in honor of the occasion:

*  It's also the 4th anniversary of Indiana's law making sugar cream the official state pie. Only Florida (key lime) and Vermont (apple) take their crust as seriously and have passed "state pie" legislation. Oh sure, Maine, Massachusetts and Delaware list pie for a "state dessert" (blueberry, Boston cream and peach, respectively). And Oklahoma includes pecan pie as part of its "state meal." But c'mon: be bold and declare an official PIE.

*  President Obama has been top of mind since his inauguration two days ago, and pie is his favorite dessert. He forked into maple-caramel-sauced apple pie at his post-swearing-in lunch. He's also fond of coconut chiffon pumpkin pie, according to his college roommate's mom.

*  Norse Nook in Osseo, Wisconsin, routinely stays open during blizzards. The "Pie Fixes Everything" motto tells you why. Check out this Flicker group of Norse's banana cream, raspberry white chocolate and other sky-high pies.

*  To salivate over regional variations in flaky goodness, click to American pie: slicing across the country. Peanut butter, gooseberry, sour cream raisin...

Mmmm, pie.

World Zombie Day

Prepare the prosthetic pustules, and bring on the braaaaains. It's World Zombie Day, celebrated the second Saturday of October each year. Fans gather in crusty, dusty solidarity around the globe. Some groups organize blood drives, others grunt over drinks during pub crawls, while others gather for communal screenings of Shaun of the Dead.

Zombies have become a $5 billion-per-year industry. In addition to literature like Pride & Prejudice & Zombies and TV shows such as The Walking Dead, zombiephiles can take hatchet-throwing lessons, "walk like a zombie" acting workshops and run in races while being chased by the undead. Zombie tourism is big business.

Personally, I'd go to Indianapolis if I was a zombie, to the Indiana Medical History Museum. It's an old insane asylum with a whole room filled with brains in jars - a zombie version of just opening a can of something for a quick dinner.

Mathematical Reason for Pie

As if you need an excuse to fork into a tender slice of pie, along comes March 14 - aka 3.14 in date form. That's pi, if you’ve forgotten your geometry: the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. Actually, the number is 3.14159265358, plus another trillion or so digits (see the first million in order here). 

Random facts abound for pie, as well:

•    Kansas once had a law making it a crime to serve ice cream on cherry pie.

•    Pie preference links to personality. Pumpkin pie eaters tend to be funny and independent. Apple pie people are realistic and compassionate, while pecan pie fans are thoughtful and analytical. And chocolate pie lovers? They're loving (duh).

•    Indiana is the only state to have legislation on both pi and pie. The Indiana Pi Bill of 1897 defies easy explanation. Best to read the wiki. Easier to digest is 2009's Senate Resolution No. 5, making sugar cream pie the official pie.

Whether a fan of pi or pie, you can now face the day with confidence.

Brains in Jars

Brain tourism: it's a travel trend, in case you didn't know.

I first came across brains in jars a few months ago at the forlorn, barbed-wire-enclosed Indiana Medical History Museum, located in the state's old insane asylum. Tours roam the former pathology lab and show how early medicine was practiced, from the cold-slabbed autopsy room to the eerie specimen room. Pickled brains fill the shelves of the latter. Each is tagged with its defect: hydrocephalus, kicked by a horse, syphilis...

Unique? Not really. Lima, Peru, has a Brain Museum with over 3000 brains in jars. Philadelphia's Mutter Museum boasts Einstein's brain (in slices). Yale has 650 brains on display. Cornell has lots of lobes, too - though it says "brain collecting has dimmed" since the 1970s.

Tell that to Washington DC's National Zoo. It has whole cabinets of brains in jars, from pygmy hippos to blue whales, white-tailed deer to red foxes. Because nothing says "fun!" to kids like a roomful of dead animal organs.

So It Goes at the Vonnegut Library

The Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library in Indianapolis is small but mighty. Offbeat tidbits from his life stock the displays, such as his Pall Mall cigarettes, Purple Heart medal, and the box where he kept his rejection letters. Each month the library frames a different letter and hangs it on the wall, ie:

"I was glad to read your story To Dust Return. I am sorry that I cannot write to you about it with enthusiasm.... I'm afraid you have tried to substitute novelty for real dramatic narrative. This sometimes works but very seldom. I'm afraid that I must, therefore, tell you that you should look elsewhere for an agent.... Yours, Larabie Cunningham, McIntosh & Otis Inc., NY, NY"

The library also replicates Vonnegut's office, complete with checkerboard carpet, red rooster lamp and blue Coronamatic typewriter. Visitors can sit at the desk and type Kurt a note, which the library then publishes via Twitter from the name @kurtstypewriter.

A few months ago, the library formed a Banned Book Response Team to give away free copies of Slaughterhouse-Five to students in Republic, MO, where the book is restricted. Yes, Billy Pilgrim and friends continue to cause controversy by swearing and having sex, even 42 years after publication.

Click here for a random, rock-n-roll Billy Pilgrim sidebar.

Vonnegut Library/Museum Opens

The new Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library has opened in downtown Indianapolis. Why Indy? Because Vonnegut was born and raised there, of course.

“All my jokes are Indianapolis. All my attitudes are Indianapolis. My adenoids are Indianapolis. If I ever severed myself from Indianapolis, I'd be out of business," Vonnegut once said.

The library/museum is currently open Fridays and Saturdays. After the official kickoff party on January 29, it'll extend hours to weekdays. Other quotes to tide you over until then:

•    Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God. Cat's Cradle
•    All persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental. Timequake
•    Why don't you take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut? Slapstick
•    So it goes. Slaughterhouse Five

Dark Lord Day

Are you prepared to meet the Dark Lord on April 25? You'll need a Golden Ticket to do so and to imbibe his black elixir.

We're talking, of course, about Three Floyd's Brewery's par-tee when they release their limited batch Dark Lord beer, a Russian imperial stout with 13% alcohol, a motor oil consistency, and hints of bourbon, chocolate, and black licorice.

Fans in the past have so overwhelmed the small Munster, Indiana brewery on the one day per year they offer Dark Lord, that Three Floyd's this year instituted its Willy Wonka policy. It put around 2000 Golden Tickets for sale on its website in March. Fan who got them are guaranteed to chance to buy a few Dark Lord bottles at Saturday's event. The tickets sold out in four hours.

Even without a Golden Ticket, you can still attend the festival, which features bands, barbecue, and plenty of other craft brews. The suds swirl from 11am to 11pm.

Obama's Missed Pie Op

President Obama looked stressed in Elkhart, Ind. yesterday, as he tried to sell his economic stimulus plan. No wonder. Elkhart - the RV Capital of the World, with more than 100 RV manufacturers in a 100-mile radius - has seen its industry collapse and unemployment rocket to 15.3%.

At least these Hoosiers have first-class comfort food at hand, and Obama could have indulged had he driven 15 miles east. The town of Middlebury has a real live Main St. On it stands the Village Inn Restaurant (107 S Main), maker of big fat wide flaky creamy slices of pie.

Bonneted Mennonite women in pastel dresses and chunky white tennis shoes come in to bake the pies daily at 4:30 am. And yes, lard is the secret ingredient. You have to arrive before lunch to get the best selection, which includes strawberry, peanut butter, Snickers, and the life-changing banana cream.

"How's the pie?" the waitress asked the customer hunkered down at the counter, forking with a frenzy.

"Mmm. Mmm, mmm, mmm," came the reply.

That says it all.