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.

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.

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.