www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgA4s9iRo4E

You might think buying hair from dead people is totally gross because, well, it is. But it’s also got a pedigree. The Victorians were all over hair jewelry, weaving strands into intricate designs that got incorporated into necklaces, earrings, and pins. Queen Victoria, that proto-Goth, was behind the trend: when Prince Albert died, the distraught monarch had rings made with his hair, which she wore all the time. Lots of Victorian writers had their tresses fashioned into hair jewelry: in his will, Coleridge asked that his hair be fashioned into six “plain gold mourning rings” for his friends. (For more on Victorian literature and hair, see the Guardian’s 2008 list “Ten of the best locks of hair.”)

The Victorians didn’t only collect hair from dead people, though. Even the living handed out their hair woven into wreaths and jewelery, as a reminder of life’s fleeting beauty. Thoughtful fiancees would sometimes pluck out a few locks and have them woven into watch chains for their betrothed, who would presumably think of their fair maidens whenever they checked the time (iPhones now seem somewhat lacking). For a glance at some Victorian hair jewlery, check out Leila’s Hair Museum or The Collector’s Encyclopedia of Hairwork Jewelry.

The Victorians didn’t invent this trend, of course. According to a 2002 article in Antiques & Collecting Magazine, the Swedes started the fad for hair jewelry in the 16th century, when they needed something to do on those long, cold Nordic nights. (Again, they didn’t have iPhones.)

And by the way, obsessed fans aren’t the only ones who buy locks of hair from celebrities. According to the book Lucy’s Bones, Sacred Stones, and Einstein’s Brain, the Morgan Library in NYC has hair that belonged to Keats and George Washington (but not at the same time), while the Library of Congress has some from Thomas Jefferson and the New York Public Library has some from Mary Shelley. Collecting hair may not make as much sense now, when we can watch the deceased on video all day long if we like, but hair is one of the few body parts to survive long after death — a direct and physical immortality that even our highest technology can’t help us achieve.

According to The Guardian, the only conclusive evidence that Hitler shot himself in his bunker has now been -- pun intended -- shattered.

Author Uki Goñi writes:

In countless biographies of Adolf Hitler the story of his final hours is recounted in the traditional version: committing suicide with Eva Braun, he took a cyanide pill and then shot himself on 30 April 1945, as the Russians bombarded Berlin.

Some historians expressed doubt that the Führer had shot himself, speculating that accounts of Hitler’s death had been embellished to present his suicide in a suitably heroic light. But a fragment of skull, complete with bullet hole, which was taken from the bunker by the Russians and displayed in Moscow in 2000, appeared to settle the argument.

Until now.

It seems the History Channel got curious about the skull fragment, which belongs to the Russian State Archive in Moscow and displays a prominent bullet hole smack-dab in the middle. While the Russian authorities have long said the skull fragment belonged to Hitler, and came from the ditch outside his bunker where his body was dumped, the History Channel decided to use some good ol’ fashioned American technology to examine their claims.

Goñi continues:

According to Connecticut archaeologist and bone specialist Nick Bellantoni, it was clear from the outset that something was amiss. “The bone seemed very thin; male bone tends to be more robust,” he said. “And the sutures where the skull plates come together seemed to correspond to someone under 40.” In April 1945 Hitler turned 56.

Furthermore, after DNA swabs were taken from the skull, they proved that its owner was once female.

Could the skull have once belonged to Eva Braun? Yes, yes, it could, but there are no reports of Braun shooting herself or having been shot. More likely, the skull belongs to someone else killed on the site.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZXktcjY6PA

While it’s pure morbid speculation (my specialty), the discovery raises the possibility that it was not actually Hitler’s body cremated by the KGB in 1970. Just in time for Yom Kippur, Daily Intel enumerated the possibilities raised by this discovery, “in descending order of plausibility”. Last on the list:

Hitler escaped and is still walking around somewhere. Keep your eyes peeled for a 120-year-old German man, because he’s probably Hitler.

Bonus Read: Is Michael Jackson’s Body Safe? True Stories of Celebrity Corpse Kidnappings

As for me, Patrick Swayze’s death is the only one this summer that made me cry.

Maybe for you it was MJ or Ted Kennedy. Sadly, as an adult I was more aware of MJ’s child abuse trials than most of his music, and as an erstwhile Canadian the Kennedy mystique is somewhat dimmed.

But as a woman now in her (very late) 20s, Swayze had an impact on my  masculine ideal. That came home to me just now, when I watched the final dance sequence in “Dirty Dancing” and couldn’t help but reach for the tissue.

I was about eight years old when I first saw the movie. While Johnny Castle’s bad boy moves where a little too much for me at the time, Swayze’s brooding physicality made a mark. He was the epitome of working-class American masculine grace, all tanned muscle and tousled hair, someone skilled with his hands (ahem) who might take you on long drives in his pick-up truck. For a generation of frilly girls ensconced in middle-class households, guys like Swayze (and later Luke Perry on “90210″) represented an escape: their erotic allure was tinged with a streak of rebellion.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=y97bWP33d8I

This morning a co-worker in London told me that for a friend’s bachelorette they rented a private threatre and screened “Dirty Dancing.” At the end, all the women got up to act out the final dance sequence.

In a line appropriate for someone who once played a ghost, Swayze once said, “I would like to believe that … there’s life after death — because if there isn’t, why are we here? I don’t believe that just flesh and bones can contain from the point of view of physics this very real recorded energy inside of us. Whether it’s true or not, we need to believe it.”

Bonus Read: Dirty Dancing Patrick Swayze Dead: Obits from Around the Web

Damon Not Dead (Click for Video)

Damon’s not the first star to suffer this treatment: the same thing happenned to Tom Cruise and countless others. The most famous story belongs to Mark Twain, who was in London when rumors of his death (or imminent death) reached the New York Journal. The Journal cabled the following to its London correspondent: IF MARK TWAIN DYING IN POVERTY IN LONDON SEND 500 WORDS” and “IF MARK TWAIN HAS DIED IN POVERTY SEND 1,000 WORDS”. Mark Twain was shown the cables, and suggested the reply “REPORT OF MY DEATH GREATLY EXAGGERATED”.

Interestingly, the world probably would not have the Nobel Prizes were it not for a mistaken obituary.  In 1888 the brother of Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, passed away, and newspapers accidentally ran on obituary of Alfred instead. The obit referred to Nobel as the “merchant of death”, and he was apparently so horror-stricken that he wrote a will establishing the Nobel Prizes.

Benjamin Franklin once said, “I wake up every morning at nine and grab for the morning paper. Then I look at the obituary page. If my name is not on it, I get up.”

By now, anyone who’s heard of DJ AM’s death has also heard of the drugs police reportedly found alongside his lifeless body: a bag of crack on his bed, and an assortment of undigested OxyContin pills inside his stomach and throat.

AM’s death adds to the grim parade of celebrities who have passed away this summer (recently nicknamed the Summer of Death), and the long line of famous people who flamed out too soon after developing addictions to mind-altering substances.

Drug-taking, of course, is not a uniquely celebrity pursuit: the desire to get f*ed up is probably as old as self-awareness. Archeological evidence suggests people have been chewing coca leaves for 2,000 years, while the Greeks worshipped wine in the form of Dionysus. Yet celebrities seem especially predisposed to doing drugs, for reasons probably best left to their therapists. While some manage to maintain their addictions into old age, others pass out in bathrooms and outside nightclubs and never wake up. Here are four famous addictions that eventually got the best of their celebrity sufferers:

OxyContin & DJ AM – It’s unclear when DJ AM (born Adam Goldstein) first started taking OxyContin, but he was prescribed pills for pain and stress after his 2008 plane crash with Travis Barker. OxyContin is a time-release formula of Oxycodone, a powerfully painkiller derived from thebaine, a constituent of opium. It’s usually prescribed to treat severe pain, but at some point people discovered that crushing the pills into a powder and snorting or injecting them delivers a heroin-like rush.

The media have dubbed OxyContin “hillbilly heroin”, because of stories that say the drug was first widely abused in Appalachia. However, journalist Joshua Lyon, writing in his recent book Pill Head: The Secret Life of a Painkiller Addict, objects to the term: for one thing, OxyContin is insanely expensive compared to heroin. An 80mg pill of OxyContin goes for about $80, according to Lyon, while a bag of heroin costs $10-$20. Unfortunately, just because the drug is expensive doesn’t mean it’s safe: OxyContin was also one of the substances that caused Heath Ledger’s death. Like Ledger, DJ AM was indulging in “polypharmacy”. OxyContin may not kill you on its own, but combining it with other drugs can produce unpredictable, and lethal, effects.

Propofol & Michael Jackson – Preliminary toxicology reports have found that Michael Jackson died at least in part because of propofol, an anesthetic the singer was apparently using as a sleep aid (one expert likens that to going through chemo because you’re sick of shaving your head). Also known as Diprivan, propofol is usually used in an IV drip to keep patients asleep during surgeries. It’s frequently employed in plastic surgery, which may have been where MJ first discovered it. Aside from putting people to sleep without side effects like nausea or grogginess, propofol can also cause mild euphoria and sexual fantasies.

Jackson’s doctor has said he was trying to wean the singer off the drug, which Jackson called his “milk”, but had admitted that on the night of his death he gave the singer 25 milligrams. That’s a relatively small dose, half Jackson’s usual amount, but apparently acted in concert with other sedatives in the singer’s body to stop his breathing. The New York Times has reported that propofol abuse is on the rise, especially among doctors and nurses who have easy access to the drug.

Heroin & Janis Joplin – Heroin may be the musician poison of choice: Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Dee Dee Ramone, and Sid Vicious all died of heroin overdoses, to name a few. Joplin loved her drinks and her drugs, though she struggled several times to kick dope, always unsuccessfully. According to one biography, she overdosed five times during her life, not counting the last.

One October day in 1970, after a long session at the studio, Joplin picked up some heroin and prepared to shoot up in her LA hotel room. Unbeknownst to her, the heroin was unusually pure – it hadn’t been checked by her usual connection. Hours later, she was discovered dead in her hotel room, still clutching change from the vending machine where she’d bought cigarettes. She was 27.

Creepily, Joplin’s death only helped the popularity of the drug that killed her, with LA dealers going around over the next few days saying they could sell you the same heroin “so strong it OD’ed Janis”. In fact, eight other people apparently died from the same batch that weekend.

Absinthe & Toulouse-Lautrec: An unusually strong, green-colored spirit, absinthe is associated with the decadence and dark imaginings of 19^th century French bohemia, from the poet Charles Baudelaire to the painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Developed as a health-giving tonic, the drink was later banned in much of Europe and the US out of a belief it produced hallucinations and insanity.

A disabled aristocrat who painted some of the best known portraits of fin de siècle Parisian circuses, bars, and brothels, Toulouse-Lautrec was one of absinthe’s most ardent devotees, even sipping from an absinthe cane of his own design. He is said to have introduced Van Gogh to absinthe, which the troubled Dutch painter was drinking the night before he cut off his ear and sent it to a prostitute. After years of abusing absinthe, Toulouse-Lautrec died of complications alcoholism, as well as syphilis, in 1901.

Van Gogh died from shooting himself in the chest, in 1890.  After he was buried, a friend planted a thuja tree over his grave. Whether the friend knew it or not, thuja has been identified as the definitive source of thujone, the chemical long thought responsible for absinthe’s deleterious effects. When Vah Gogh was exhumed several years later, the roots of the tree had grown around his coffin, as if clutching it in an embrace.

Photo by ephotography

On Saturday, Michael Jackson will be buried in the Holly Terrace of the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. Forest Lawn is the Disneyland of famous cemeteries, designed to convince people that death is not a sorrowful ending but a return to joyful innocence. The grounds, littered with flowered shrubs and reproductions of famous works of art, have names like Eventide, Graceland, Babyland (for babies), and Dawn of Tomorrow. Among the many celebrities buried at Forest Lawn, those in the Great Mausoleum get the ultimate luxury in afterlife services: round-the-clock security. The building is heavily guarded, and off-limits to the public.

According to a strange article last week on CBS News, the Jackson family chose the site because they were terrified that fans might try to kidnap MJ’s corpse. While that may sound bizarre, famous corpses have been kidnapped before. Consider the case of Elvis Presley, who died in 1977. According to Christine Quigley, author of The Corpse: A History, eleven days after Elvis’ death four men were arrested for trying to kidnap his body, which they had planned for hold for a ransom.

Or consider Charlie Chaplin, whose body was kidnapped in 1978, a year after he was buried in Switzerland. Chaplin’s widow refused to pay the £400,000 ransom, claiming her husband would have thought the sum ridiculous. A few weeks later, the famous comedian’s body was discovered intact in a nearby cornfield.

Abraham Lincoln’s corpse was also kidnapped, or nearly. In 1876, a gang of Chicago counterfeiters plotted to kidnap his body and hold it in exchange for their imprisoned ringleader. Fortunately, they were stupid enough to allow a Secret Service agent in on the plan, and were foiled just after they had gotten into the tomb and were trying to figure out a way to lift up Lincoln’s coffin. Afterward, Robert Lincoln got his father’s coffin covered in steel bars, sunk ten feet below the floor, and piled with tons of cement. Still, the coffin has been moved 17 times since then in response to other kidnapping threats.

Gram Parsons’ corpse was actually kidnapped, though this time by friends. Parsons’ buddies were determined to fulfill his last wish, which was to be cremated and scattered in Joshua Tree National Park. His father, however, had other plans, and booked his body on a plane home to New Orleans for a proper funeral. Parson’s friends, probably drunk and stoned out of their minds, managed to convince workers at LAX to hand over the coffin, which they drove to Joshua Tree in a borrowed hearse and then doused in gasoline. The cops eventually caught up with them, but not before most of Parsons’ body was incinerated in a giant fireball.

Going further back, John Milton was allegedly exhumed by drunken church officials in 1790. While historians are divided on the veracity of the tale, it’s said the officials stole Milton’s ribs as souvenirs, and that cemetery workers put his body on display the next day, charging six pence for admission. For years afterwards, relics said to have once belonged to Milton’s body circulated among English collectors.

Those are just a few of the times people have managed the get inside coffins of the famous. Frankly, fans behave badly enough when they leave the coffin alone. James Dean’s headstone has been stolen twice, while Jim Morrison’s grave has seen so many crazed devotees that it now has a 24-hour security detail. The grave of Oscar Wilde, who is buried at the same cemetery as Morrison, is so covered in lipstick kisses that his stone is starting to decay. It makes sense that celebrities like Michael Jackson, hounded every waking moment by paparazzi, would prefer to spend their eternities resting in well-guarded peace.

Photo by Fish Gravy