Friday, May 20, 2011

And in the Vault...

Miriam Ushers Tomb
Location: Usher Boneyard

When you Google "headless skeleton," you never know what you'll find.

Now that the Mountains of Nevermore are nearly done, I'm returning my attention to the Island's interior and the crypts beneath The House of Usher.

As Madeline Usher grows ill, her brother refuses to place her body in the family graveyard, to avoid "certain obtrusive and eager inquiries on the part of her medical men, and of the remote and exposed situation of the burial-ground of the family."

Usher Panorama
Well, what might have happened to other Ushers in that forlorn graveyard? Of such voyeuristic horrors are Poe's tales woven.


The tomb was easy to build, and I found a very nice stone-on-stone sound at freesound.org. The lid image is a modified photograph, as is the headless skeleton inside.  The mystery, noted in the tomb, would be how a recently buried person (the Ushers' mother, in fact) became so weathered and lost her head.  Seek in the cemetery and you may find out!

2 comments:

Bryan Alexander said...

FreeSound is an underappreciated glory.

Keep digging, Iggy! Do you hear rats in the walls? Or perhaps a buried chapel?

Iggy O said...

Bryan, I'm buying a digital sound recorder this summer. Jokaydia Grid supports .wav files up to 10 seconds long.

For now, no rats to tape, but a mouse did chew its way into a loaf of my bread over the weekend.

Expect to hear at least one prolonged squeak at Usher, and soon, when I find that little rascal :)