I'm thinking of that quote because I'm reading the comments on a WaPo article, "Woman impaled by beach umbrella in Ocean City" ("an umbrella was apparently uprooted and swept away by a gust of wind... the sharper end the umbrella shaft, which is used to plant it into the ground, impaled the woman in the chest"). This is what people have seen fit to write:
Obviously, time for common sense beach umbrella control.By the way, there was another beach-umbrella impaling a week ago (in the foot, not the chest). And now, I'm googling "death by umbrella" and seeing, from last March, "How a beach umbrella fatally impaled a woman with 800 pounds of force":
I call for strict umbrella licensing and a 3 day waiting period.
Yes, we should of course do this, to the same extent every other advanced democracy does.
Thanks Trump!
Mary Poppins better learn how to park that thing.
The umbrella injured the left ventricle of the woman’s heart, and despite an emergency surgery, she died. “If this incident had gone unwitnessed, and the nature of the object was not recognized, the manner of this woman’s death may have been in question... This case provides confirmation that beach umbrellas may cause fatal penetrating blunt force trauma to the chest.”There have also been cases of deliberate weaponizing of umbrellas, notably the assassination of the Bulgarian dissident writer Georgi Ivanov Markov in 1978:
On 7 September 1978, Markov walked across Waterloo Bridge spanning the River Thames, and waited at a bus stop to take a bus to his job at the BBC. He felt a slight sharp pain, as a bug bite or sting, on the back of his right thigh. He looked behind him and saw a man picking up an umbrella off the ground. The man hurriedly crossed to the other side of the street and got in a taxi which then drove away. The event is recalled as the "Umbrella Murder" with the assassin claimed to be Francesco Gullino, codenamed "Piccadilly".Here is Markov's description of life in Bulgaria in his time:
When he arrived at work at the BBC World Service offices, Markov noticed a small red pimple had formed at the site of the sting he had felt earlier and the pain had not lessened or stopped. He told at least one of his colleagues at the BBC about this incident. That evening he developed a fever and was admitted to St James' Hospital in Balham, where he died four days later, on 11 September 1978, at the age of 49. The cause of death was poisoning from a ricin-filled pellet.
Today, we Bulgarians present a fine example of what it is to exist under a lid which we cannot lift and which we no longer believe someone else can lift... And the unending slogan which millions of loudspeakers blare out is that everyone is fighting for the happiness of the others. Every word spoken under the lid constantly changes its meaning. Lies and truths swap their values with the frequency of an alternating current... We have seen how personality vanishes, how individuality is destroyed, how the spiritual life of a whole people is corrupted in order to turn them into a listless flock of sheep. We have seen so many of those demonstrations which humiliate human dignity, where normal people are expected to applaud some paltry mediocrity who has proclaimed himself a demi-god and condescendingly waves to them from the heights of his police inviolability...Speaking of paltry mediocrity, I am seeing — in a cheesy book called "Death by Umbrella! the 100 Weirdest Horror Movie Weapons" — that there were 2 movies in which an umbrella was a murder weapon: "Silent Night, Deadly Night 2" ("Ricky skewers Rocco... and even unfurls it") and "Stitches" (woman killed with an umbrella to through the back of her head, popping out her eyeball, and unfurling in a way that rains blood all over the place).
I give you that clip, but I myself could not watch it. I clicked off at 6 seconds. Let's look at this:
Monument to Georgi Markov in Sofia cc TodorBelomorski
A translation of the inscription: "The living close the eyes of the dead, the dead open the eyes of the living."
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44 comments:
Umbrellas are male or female, depending on unfurling.
Putin would have been 25 at the time of the umbrella poisoning. The assassination of Markov was in 1978, after Godfather and Godfather II, so it was easy to pin it on the Dane with an Italian name.
Death on the beach ... sudden, violent and unexpected. Baywatch as Twighlight Zone.
Got nothing on John Steed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUQzNIxGLyM
Don't forget how Sean Connery used an umbrella to defeat a Nazi pilot in the Indiana Jones movie!
"Don't forget how Sean Connery used an umbrella to defeat a Nazi pilot in the Indiana Jones movie!"
Am I the only person who has never seen an Indiana Jones movie?
"[...] where normal people are expected to applaud some paltry mediocrity who has proclaimed himself a demi-god and condescendingly waves to them from the heights of his police inviolability..."
It always comes back to Obama.
What can go up a chimney down, but can't go down a chimney up ?
"We have seen how personality vanishes, how individuality is destroyed, how the spiritual life of a whole people is corrupted in order to turn them into a listless flock of sheep."
Isn't that the whole point of political correctness and social justice?
Your "umbrella" tag really ought to include Hillary's epic battle with the Tea Partiers.
Am I the only person who has never seen an Indiana Jones movie?
Probably. So this means you never understood why some of us would now and again link to a clip of a very old man dressed in 13th century armor saying "He chose ... poorly.
This looks like a product liability class action just waiting to, um, get off the ground.
Think of the warning labels that coulda-woulda-shoulda been affixed! With large skull-and-crossbones logos in bright red on emergency yellow! Possibly also a training tape or instruction manual.
Of course, like always, there's Christo.
Indirectly related was the death of a worker in dismantling the Japanese installation.
It was a joint project after all.
This would be more amusing if there wasn't a new push in Phoenix for people to carry umbrellas to protect against sun/intense heat. Expect death rate here to soar once the next haboob hits.
John Steed frequently used his umbrella in combat on The Avengers.
Don B: "...Avengers." Yes! Somewhat relatedly there is a Filipino branch of martial arts based on canes. That rounded handle can do a surprising amount of damage.
If she were wearing a cast aluminum breast plate of sufficient thickness, it would have never happened.
Althouse, not to be a pest but, you really should sit down and watch at least the first and third movies. They are campy and fun.
Speaking of "not funny", whatever happened to #MeToo?
Were liberals disproportionately skewered by the umbrellas of #MeToo?
It's the physical act of falling down a manhole that's funny. You're there and in an instant you're not. It takes a beat to grasp what occurred.
Slipping on a banana peel is funny because that spontaneity too. The contortions in the act of falling are funny.
I don't get the impaled by a flying umbrella bit. Is it the benevolence of the instrument?
St. Patrick performed the baptism ritual for Aengus, King of Munster. The task concluded, Patrick reached for his staff. He found that he had shoved the sharp tip of the staff through the king's foot, instead of into the ground as Patrick intended. He asked why the King hadn't said anything, and the King answered, "I thought it was part of the ceremony."
That dastardly fiend Penguin!
Why is the inscription written in Russian??.....or does Bulgarian also use cyrillic?
On a beach outing back in the 60s, my mother was hit in the face with the bottom tip of a wayward umbrella. Fortunately my doctor uncle was also on the scene. Mom ended up needing some stitches but at least it missed her eye by an inch.
Some people win the lottery twice in a lifetime. On the other end of the luck spectrum, some people win the bad luck lottery and get impaled by a beach umbrella.......In the future I shall exercise more caution in my choice of duck boats, but I will remain utterly fearless in the face of beach umbrellas.
@MaH: Bulgarians invented Cyrillic.
William: "...utterly fearless in the face of beach umbrellas."
Translated into Latin that would be a fine motto on your family coat of arms.
Life in socialist Bulgaria sounds an awful lot like the life that democrats want for us.
Socialism wins elections by talking about helping people fully realize their own humanity but functions by grinding individuals up into a gray mass like the contents of mystery meat in cafeteria stream tables. But the snowflakes voting for Bernie will not believe that. However we might get somewhere by pointing out that "free" college education means that you pay several thousand dollars a year for the entire rest of your life rather than for ten or even twenty years. That's what it will take in taxes for "free" college education. And free medical care means the same. And since with all the taxes there is nothing left to spend on doing things you like - expensive bicycles, rock climbing, capitalist nonsense - you turn into a drab gray person, like an East German in the Sixties. If you are unlucky. You might, more colorfully, turn into something like a Venezuelan scavenging garbage for your dinner and get shot by the police because they can.
Is there any reason for Beach Umbrellas to be sharp & pointed at the top?
Famous actor David Niven (1910-1983) wrote in his autobiography an anecdote when screenwriter Charles MacArthur (1895-1956) asked Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977) for advice on how to design a gag in which a fat lady is walking down the street, slipping on a banana peel and falling down. Since such a stunt was performed thousands of times before, how to do it and make the audience laugh?
Should he first show the banana peel, then the lady approaching, and then the fall? Or, to show the fat lady first, and then the banana peel on which she slips?
Charlie Chaplin immediately replied:
"You show the fat lady approaching; then you show the banana peel; then you show the fat lady and the banana peel together; then she steps OVER the banana peel and disappears down a manhole."
From here.
I watched the horror movie excerpt. I liked the part where the eyeball popped out. However, when the victim collapsed and then the eyeball fell into her open mouth was overdone and rather derivative of Cabin In The Woods. Popped eyeballs should never be presented in a cliched or derivative way. They lose their impact.
I remember a story a long time ago by Graham Greene (I think) about a British boy whose father is killed by a falling pig. The pig was on a balcony in Spain, the balcony collapsed under the weight and the pig finished off the kid's old man, who was standing underneath the balcony. The main character suffers as he goes though life, tells people about the circumstances of his father's death and then watches them struggle to keep a straight face as they mutter "how terrible!" It becomes a test of character to him, and almost everyone fails it. Finally, he meets a young woman who cries out "Oh, that's so dreadful!" and he can tell she's not amused by it at all - because she completely lacks a sense of humor. He instantly falls in love with her.
I need to slow down my scanning or get new glasses.
Becoming umbrella-obsessed by your text I thought that photo of the Markov statue showed him holding a furled umbrella in his left hand.
But it's a tree behind him.
Casey Stengel remarked of Yogi Berra "If he fell down a manhole he'd come up with a gold watch."
Speaking of comedy...animals being jerks is always a classic.
Don't forget Umbrella Man at the JFK assassination.
Human beings like most other organisms evolved drenched in sunlight half the time, yet we need to protect ourselves from it. What's up with that? It would make more sense that we derived our energy directly from it instead of the unreliable and roundabout way we do via Mcdonalds fries and vodka.
Remember Christo?
On 26 October 1991, one of the umbrellas in California was toppled by high winds, killing one woman and injuring several others. The exhibit was ordered closed immediately. A second death occurred during the removal of the umbrellas.
"The living close the eyes of the dead, the dead open the eyes of the living."
- The Sphinx, "Mystery Men"
The 800-pound force umbrella stopped in ~.014 seconds and had a stabby-end diameter of ~.28"
As Dave Barry might say, "There is no good reason for beach umbrellas to be in civilian hands."
@rcocean, beach umbrellas are not pointed at the top. They’re pointed on the bottom so you can anchor them in the sand. Ideal depth is 18” or deeper, but most people stop well short of that so a good gust of wind pulls it up from the sand.
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