Zombie Flowchart

Are you a zombie?  This flowchart, from TheDoghouseDiaries.com, should help you answer the question...

How to Survive Miami's Zombie Apocalypse

How to Survive Miami's Zombie Apocalypse, According to Zombie Expert Jonathan Maberry
Hannah Sentenac
Wed., May 30 2012
http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/cultist/2012/05/draft_how_to_survive_miamis_zo.php

According to authorities, there's a good chance that last week's face-eating incident was the result of mind-altering drugs. (Just say no, kids.)

But according to the rest of us, it may signal the beginning of an inevitable threat Hollywood has warned us about for years: a zombie apocalypse. (Just ask The Miami zombie.)

Naturally, we're all a little concerned that the undead may choose our sunny paradise as their next city of smorgasbord. After all, the heat is nice and lubricating for their stiff limbs.

So, in the interest of being prepared, we spoke to zombie expert Jonathan Maberry, author of Zombie CSU: The Forensics of the Living Dead on how best to survive a zombie apocalypse. Y'know, just in case.

Cultist: I'm sure you heard about the recent face-eating zombie attack in Miami. Any commentary?
Maberry: Within a few hours of the report hitting the news I was inundated by emails, IMs, Facebook and Twitter posts telling me, in essence, that the stuff I've been writing may not be fiction.

What would you say is the top rule of zombie survival?
Don't be the dumb loudmouth in your group of survivors. These days, folks are likely to feed you to the zoms and make their escape during the chow-down.

What weapons or supplies should we procure to prepare ourselves?
In my series of teen post-apocalyptic zombie novels (Rot & Ruin, Dust & Decay, etc.) the smartest object of defense isn't a gun or knife -- it's body armor made from carpet. You can't really bite through it and there's carpet everywhere. In the movies, the characters always run out into a crowd of zoms wearing ordinary clothes. I'd tear up the carpet, secure it with some duct tape (and we all have duct tape), and then stroll through the crowd of frustrated zombies.

Can we ply them with any other food besides human flesh?
If we accept the movies of George Romero as "zombie canon," then the living dead eat everything -- humans, animals, insects. We can always breed food for them. And it would provide jobs for farmers in a troubled economy.

How do zombies react to hot weather?
Zombies would thrive in hot weather. The heat keeps them limber. Cold would freeze them solid since body heat comes from blood flow. Of course, as the temperature rises, the zoms would spoil pretty quickly. Smelly ... but eventually they'd fall apart.

Can zombies swim?
Zombies wouldn't be a threat in the water. The freshly killed ones would sink like a stone without air in their lungs for buoyancy. The rotting ones might float because of gasses released by putrefaction, but they would lack the coordination for the mechanics of swimming and couldn't strategize on how to overcome tides and currents. So, a great way to survive the zombie apocalypse is to strap on that Speedo and take a dip.

Are there different varieties of zombie?
There are several classifications of zombies. The old-school zombies are the raised dead used as slaves by priests of the Haitian religion of vodou. Since the 1960s we've come to hang the "zombie" nickname on flesh-eating ghouls of the Romero kind, and these are slow-moving, mindless corpses. Then there are the fast zombies, as introduced first in the film Return of the Living Dead (1985) and made famous in the 2004 Zack Snyder remake of Dawn of the Dead. Then you have the "rage virus-infected," who are mindless humans infected by a disease that makes them kill everyone they meet. They were first introduced in George Romero's 1973 flick The Crazies, then later became wildly popular in Danny Boyle's 2002 classic, 28 Days Later and the 2010 remake of The Crazies. Oh, and Europe is famous for its demonically possessed zombies, and there have been a zillion of those films.

What's the most common misconception about zombies?
The most common misconception about zombies is that the disease only spreads through bites. However Romero established that everyone who dies, no matter how or why, will rise as a zombies. Bites simply make it happen faster.

So there you have it. Get ready to tear up that carpet and make a swim for it, Miami.

Zombie Jesus

From ReligionDispatches.com:
God has made a guest appearance on the second season of The Walking Dead.

If you haven’t been watching AMC’s mega-hit based on the award-winning comic series, here’s the elevator pitch: survivors of a zombie apocalypse have escaped from an undead-infested Atlanta and are making their way across a ruined Southern landscape.

For the season premiere they’re in the Georgia countryside where they’ve found, not surprisingly, a Southern Baptist church. I’m thinking most RD readers, if they saw this most recent episode, threw some popcorn at the screen. Why? Well, apparently The Walking Dead needs to hire some historical/religious advisors because they put a gigantic bloody Jesus, hanging on a cross, in a church that’s named, simply, “Southern Baptist Church.”

This blooper aside, the scene in the church offers us something exceedingly creepy and provocative, with zombie parishioners sitting almost meditatively in the pews. A zombie woman wears a pre-Vatican II (and now, traditionalist) prayer veil. This represents, of course, another religious imagery epic fail in the Southern Baptist context but still makes for a wonderfully unsettling tableau.

Religious faith in the world of the zombie apocalypse plays a role throughout this episode. Two of the characters, one deeply religious and one self-consciously not, take a moment to pray to the tormented Jesus hanging in the church. One confesses a faith seemingly impossible in the world of horror that surrounds her; the other confesses a lack of faith that pre-dates the zombie pandemic. Both ask for miracles in a world ruled by monsters.

This Is My Body

Some horror newbies, drawn in by the excellent storytelling and character development that AMC is justly famous for, might be surprised to see religious symbolism and themes making an appearance in a gruesome tale of rotting, flesh-eating zombies. They shouldn’t be.

In fact, the undying and undead popularity of the zombie genre has created a religious symbolism all its own. Google “zombie Jesus” and you will be astonished at how the meme of Jesus as zombie has borrowed, satirized, and even contemplated Christ as risen from the dead; Christians as eaters of body and blood.

The idea has become so popular that YouTube videos, t-shirts, and even sometimes extravagant tattoos tell the zombie Jesus story. A website connects popular conceptions of the zombie to the Christian resurrection narrative and encourages a celebration of Easter as “zombie Jesus day.” In Philadelphia, the hugely popular annual zombie walk (in which participants become decaying version of themselves and shamble the streets as zombies on parade) takes place on Easter weekend with specific references to the Christian holiday of the undead...

Praying to the Zombie Jesus: The Spirituality of Horror
W. Scott Poole
October 28, 2011
http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/culture/5324/praying_to_the_zombie_jesus:_the_spirituality_of_horror

10 Creepy Mysteries You Haven’t Heard Of

http://listverse.com/2010/09/12/10-creepy-mysteries-you-havent-heard-of/

September 12, 2010
Crime & Mystery
10 Creepy Mysteries You Haven’t Heard Of
Jamie Frater

We have had numerous mystery lists in the past, but, due to a recent question I asked on the Listverse fanpage on facebook, I decided to put together a new one. This list covers mysteries that are, hopefully, not well known to most of you (but including one previously published item with updated information), and ones that have something creepy about them. I hope you enjoy the list and be sure to mention other creepy mysteries in the comments.

10: Shanti Deva

In 1930, aged 4, Shanti Deva from Delhi, India, told her parents that she had once lived in a place called Muttra (now known as Mathura), that she had been a mother of three, who died in childbirth, and that her previous name was Ludgi. Because the girl continually related the story, her parents investigated. It turned out there was a village called Muttra, and that a woman named Ludgi had recently died there. They took Shanti to the village where she began to speak the local dialect and recognized her previous-life husband and children. She even gave twenty four accurate statements matching confirmed facts about Ludgi’s life. An impressive feat for a four year old.

9: Creepy Gnome

In 2008, a creepy gnome was caught on film in Argentina. Jose Alvarez – who filmed the gnome – told newspaper, El Tribuno, that they caught the creature on film while larking about in their hometown of General Guemes, in the province of Salta, Argentina.

He said: “We were chatting about our last fishing trip. It was one in the morning. I began to film a bit with my mobile phone while the others were chatting and joking. Suddenly we heard something – a weird noise as if someone was throwing stones. We looked to one side and saw that the grass was moving. To begin with we thought it was a dog but when we saw this gnome-like figure begin to emerge we were really afraid.”

Other locals have since come forward to say they have spotted the gnome, and the town has been covered in a pall of fear ever since the first sighting.

8: Freddy Jackson’s Ghost

This creepy photo, taken in 1919, was first published in 1975, by Sir Victor Goddard, a retired R.A.F. officer. The photo is a group portrait of Goddard’s squadron, which had served in World War I, aboard the HMS Daedalus. An extra ghostly face appears in the photo. At the back of the airman positioned on the top row, fourth from the left, can clearly be seen the face of another man. It is said to be the face of Freddy Jackson, an air mechanic who had been accidentally killed by an airplane propeller two days earlier. His funeral had taken place on the day this photograph was snapped. Members of the squadron easily recognized the face as Jackson’s. It has been suggested that Jackson, unaware of his death, decided to show up for the group photo. In case you don’t notice the ghost – look behind the head in the inset on the left of the picture.

7: Overtoun Bridge

The Overtoun Bridge is an arch bridge located near Milton, Dumbarton, Scotland, which was built in 1859. It has become famous for the number of unexplained instances in which dogs have, apparently, committed suicide by leaping off it. The incidents were first recorded around the 1950's or 1960's, when it was noticed that dogs – usually the long-nosed variety, like Collies – would suddenly and unexpectedly leap off the bridge and fall fifty feet, to their deaths. In some cases, however, the dogs would survive, recuperate, and then leap off the bridge again. What makes this tragic mystery even more mysterious is that many of the dogs that jump from Overton Bridge jump from the same side and from almost the same spot: between the final two parapets on the right-hand side of the bridge.

Some believe that the bridge is haunted. In 1994, a man threw his baby son off the bridge, claiming that it was the anti-Christ. Later, the man attempted suicide there as well. Was Overtoun Bridge responsible for this tragic event? Some believe that Overtoun Bridge is a “thin place”, where the barrier between the world of the living and the world of the dead meet, and sometimes cross over.

6: James Worson

On September 3, 1873, a man named James Worson had accepted a challenge to race, in record time, from the town of Leamington to the town of Coventry, a 20-mile trek. He had been boasting of his foot skills and then was asked to prove them, so, with sporting good spirits, he set about to do just that. Two friends, Hammerson Burns and Barham Wise, followed behind in a horse-drawn gig. Burns brought along his camera. Worson was never out of their sight, and would often turn around while running to exchange some friendly words with the two riders. Running in the middle of the road, Worson suddenly appeared to stumble and pitch forward, having time enough for only one short, piercing scream. Wise later said, “It was the most ghastly sound ether of us had ever heard.” But as Worson pitched forward with that terrible cry, instead of falling to the ground as he appeared to be about to have done, he completely and totally vanished in mid-fall, before ever striking the ground. The road itself told the story and Wise took the pictures to prove it. There, in the soft dirt, were Worson’s footprints.They led down the middle of the road, looked as if the runner stumbled, and there they disappeared. A search was called and the locals scoured the area for James. The bloodhounds used in the search were strangely reluctant to approach the spot where Worson disappeared. He was never seen or heard from again.

5: Devil’s Footprints

On the night of 8–9 February, 1855, and one or two later nights, after a light snowfall, a series of hoof-like marks appeared in the snow. These footprints, measuring 1.5 to 2.5 inches wide and eight inches apart, continued throughout the countryside for a total of over 100 miles, and, although veering at various points, for the greater part of their course followed straight lines. Houses, rivers, haystacks and other obstacles were traveled straight over, and footprints appeared on the tops of snow-covered roofs and high walls which lay in the footprints’ path, as well as leading up to and exiting various drain pipes of as small as a four inch diameter. There were also attendant rumors about sightings of a “devil-like figure” in the Devon area during the scare. Many townspeople armed themselves and attempted to track down the beast responsible, without success. Recently, on the night of March 12, 2009, more strange marks, corresponding to those left in 1855, were found again in Devon – these new footprints are shown above.

4: Felicia Felix-Mentor

Felicia Felix-Mentor reportedly died in 1907, after a sudden illness of the type that Haitian belief finds to be characteristic of a person marked to be made into a zombie. In 1936, a woman (either nude or in ragged clothing, depending on the source) was found wandering the streets, and made her way to a farm which she claimed belonged to her father. The owners identified the woman as Felicia Felix-Mentor, long thought dead, and Felix-Mentor’s husband also confirmed this. Due to her poor health, she was sent to a government hospital. A doctor who interviewed her described her behavior:

Her occasional outbursts of laughter were devoid of emotion, and very frequently she spoke of herself in either the first or the third person without any sense of discrimination. She had lost all sense of time and was quite indifferent to the world of things around her.

3: Chupas

Chupas are mysterious objects, or UFOs, allegedly seen by night in the eastern forests of (mainly) Brazil. They are described as smaller, metallic-like objects that fly about the treetops, making a humming sound like a refrigerator or a transformer. Since most people in the area are poor, they often go out during the night to hunt food, such as deer. To do this, they climb up in trees to await their prey. It is often during this period of waiting that hunters claim to spot the chupas. When seen, chupas are claimed to emit a bright white light. Instead of being “just unidentified objects” or lights, they are alleged to be lethal. In some cases, people claim to have been hunted by them. It is claimed that this often results in all kinds of pain for days (sometimes years) after their experience. It has also been claimed that some people have even died from the alleged lethal beams emitted by the chupas, and that some hunters have tried to shoot at the chupas, with no effect.

2: SS Ourang Medan

In February, 1948, distress calls were picked up by numerous ships near Indonesia, from the Dutch freighter SS Ourang Medan. The chilling message was, “All officers including captain are dead lying in chartroom and bridge. Possibly whole crew dead.” This message was followed by indecipherable Morse code then one final grisly message… “I die.” When the first rescue vessel arrived on the scene a few hours later, they tried to hail the Ourang Medan but there was no response. A boarding party was sent to the ship and what they found was a frightening sight that has made the Ourang Medan one of the strangest and scariest ghost ship stories of all time.

All the crew and officers of the Ourang Medan were dead, their eyes open, faces looking towards the sun, arms outstretched and a look of terror on their faces. Even the ship’s dog was dead, found snarling at some unseen enemy. When nearing the bodies in the boiler room, the rescue crew felt a chill, though the temperature was near 110°F. The decision was made to tow the ship back to port, but before they could get underway, smoke began rolling up from the hull. The rescue crew left the ship and barely had time to cut the tow lines before the Ourang Medan exploded and sank.

To this day, the exact fate of the Ourang Medan and her crew remains a mystery.

1: Gef

In September, 1931, the Irving family — James, Margaret and daughter Voirrey (13) — claimed to hear persistent scratching and rustling noises behind their farmhouse’s wooden wall panels. At first they thought it was a rat, but then the unseen creature began making different sounds, sometimes spitting like a ferret, or growling like a dog, or gurgling like a baby. The creature soon revealed an ability to speak, and introduced itself as Gef, a mongoose. It claimed to have been born in New Delhi, India, in 1852. According to Voirrey, who was the only person to see him properly, Gef was the size of a small rat, with yellowish fur and a large bushy tail (the Indian mongoose is in reality much larger than a rat and does not have a bushy tail).

Gef variously claimed to be “an extra extra clever mongoose”, an “earthbound spirit” and “a ghost in the form of a weasel”. He once said, “I am a freak. I have hands and I have feet, and if you saw me you’d faint, you’d be petrified, mummified, turned into stone or a pillar of salt!” Voirrey Irving, who took Gef under her wing, died in 2005. In an interview published late in life, she maintained that Gef was not her creation.

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Philly book publisher the BRAAAINS! behind phenom

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/10/philly-book-publisher-braaains-phenom

Philly book publisher the BRAAAINS! behind phenom
Friday, October 15th, 2010
Philadelphia's indie publisher Quirk Books is the BRAAAINS! behind zombie mashup phenom

The undead have created a whole new life for Quirk Books, the brains — or rather the BRAAAINS! — behind the monster best-seller "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies."

Quirk, an independent publisher that started with a series of tongue-in-cheek guides for surviving highly unlikely misfortunes, has established the hybrid "mashup" genre bending of out-of-copyright classics and horror-fied kitsch.

"It has in a way become kind of a modern, or a postmodern, classic," said Quirk president and founder David Borgenicht, whose 15-person staff works in an inconspicuous building on a cobblestone-paved side street in Philadelphia's Old City neighborhood. "That wasn't at all our intent. It was simply too crazy not to publish."

Ever look at something and ask yourself why you didn't think of it first? That's one way Quirk comes up with its titles.

"When we have an idea and say, `If this was a book, I'd buy it,'" Borgenicht said, "that instinct is key."

It was creative director Jason Rekulak's idea to add lumbering hordes of discourteous flesh-eaters to Jane Austen's 19th-century comedy of manners, "Pride and Prejudice," spawning a monstrous hit.

"Pride and Prejudice and Zombies," Quirk's first foray into fiction, debuted in April 2009 at No. 3 on The New York Times best-seller list. It since has sold more than a million copies, been translated into nearly two dozen languages, been made into a graphic novel and an iPhone game, and been optioned for the big screen.

"Quirk has great quality to their books and an incredible design sense," said University of Baltimore professor Arnold T. Blumberg, who teaches a class on zombies in popular culture. "It's kind of heartening: You hear about how old-fashioned print is dying and here's a company creating things that get widespread attention, good-looking books that stand out on the shelf, that you want to own."

The book's success says as much about the iconic nature of "Pride and Prejudice" as it does about the popularity of zombies, he added.

"Jane Austen, and that one book especially, has become a major cultural touchstone for so many people," he said.

The runaway success of "Zombies" established Quirk, a privately held company that does not release financial data, as creator of the mashup genre. It also launched a cottage industry of copycats from "Jayne Slayre" to "Little Vampire Women."

"To some extent it saturates the market, but at the same time we know what made `Pride and Prejudice and Zombies' work wasn't just the title," Borgenicht said. "It's a lot more thoughtful, hard work in order to create something that will be remembered and read, that goes beyond being just a gratuitous novelty."

When the blogosphere started buzzing months before the release of "Zombies," Rekulak knew the company had a hit and wanted to capitalize on the momentum. He quickly came up with "Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters," released just five months after its predecessor, which also became a best-seller with more than 375,000 copies in print.

"There are discussions and articles about the (mashup) trend, what it all means, where it came from. I can say undisputedly that it came from Jason at Quirk Books, directly from his head," said "Sea Monsters" author Ben H. Winters.

Winters, who also wrote sci-fi Tolstoy mashup "Android Karenina" for Quirk, said the company's success lies in its "clearly defined aesthetic."

"It's parody but it doesn't feel cynical," he said. "They're laid back, funny, interesting people doing laid back, funny, interesting work."

Quirk recently left the Victorian era for space, the final frontier, with "Night of the Living Trekkies" and its heroes using their science-nerd knowledge to battle zombies descending on the hallowed ground of a Star Trek convention.

"All the Trekkie stuff checks out," Rekulak said. "We have yet to receive a single angry letter — and you know if there was a problem, we'd get them."

About a decade ago, Quirk made its bones with outlandish how-to handbooks combining information and humor with clever graphic design and packaging. "The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook," co-written by Borgenicht and released in 1999, offers funny-but-true illustrated tips on surviving shark attacks, quicksand and other implausible calamities.

"It became a huge hit and got us up and running as a real company," Borgenicht said. "It's the best business plan ever — get a best-seller right out of the gate."

More than a dozen "Worst-Case" books, cards, games and calendars followed, which "brought us financial and industry capital and gave me the clarity of vision about the kind of books I wanted us to do, which is really entertaining, crossover books."

Quirk has since published 200-plus titles with irreverent takes on history, dating, childbirth, cooking, pop culture, fitness and careers. Among the less risque titles, found in places ranging from Williams-Sonoma and Urban Outfitters to bookstores and comic book shops: "Booze Cakes," "The Encyclopedia Shatnerica," and "The Big Book of Porn."

"Every aspect of the book has to work as hard as it can: great concept, great title, great package, great writer, great marketing," Borgenicht said. "If you have that, you've got something of value."

Ideas are usually generated by Quirk's creative team. Once a concept is green-lighted, freelance writers are hired to work with in-house editors and graphic designers — a setup that allows the company to control more of the rights to their titles and more easily adapt them into other formats.

Readers should expect more mashups with classic novels as well as all-original content like "Trekkies" in the coming year. Borgenicht also hinted at a "sci-fi slash political satire" book on deck for 2012, in time for the next presidential election.

"We provide something that's entertaining and informative and cool that you'd be proud to display on your coffee table, or the back of your toilet," he said. "And, you know, for my money, we're perfectly happy to be on the back of your toilet — more reading goes on there than at the coffee table."
___
Online:

Quirk Books: http://www.irreference.com/

Source: AP News

Kool Website: Zombie Me!

http://www.zombieme.net/

What would you look like as a zombie?

Use our FBI grade face prediction software to find out what you would look like as a zombie!

How to Make a Zombie, Haiti-Style

http://www.aolnews.com/weird-news/article/how-to-make-a-zombie-haiti-style/19638134

How to Make a Zombie, Haiti-Style
Lee Speigel

AOL News (Sept. 21) -- The undead are all around us, and have been for decades.

Zombies are in our mass consciousness, invading art, literature, entertainment and even education. But at the heart of this fear-mongering revolution is a single question: Is it all pure fiction, or are there in fact real zombies?

That depends on your definition of the word "zombie."

For filmmakers in Hollywood, zombies are half-dead figures that lumber toward you with arms outstretched, stinking of rotting flesh. But in Haiti, could zombies be unfortunate victims who have been forced into slavery while under the influence of highly potent drugs?

While movies depict zombies as flesh eaters who spread their affliction like an illness, the voodoo culture and religion of Haiti has its own recipes for making a zombie -- a term derived from the word "Nzambi," meaning "spirit of a dead person" to the Bacongo people of Angola.

A leading theory holds that a voodoo priest, or bokor, is able to concoct a poison that can render a victim weak and appear dead.

"It's not what we see in Hollywood, of course. Strictly speaking, a zombie is a reanimated corpse that's been brought back to life to serve as a slave for a voodoo priest or priestess," said Brad Steiger, one of the most prolific authors of books dealing with unexplained phenomena.

In his recent book, "Real Zombies, the Living Dead and Creatures of the Apocalypse" (Visible Ink Press), Steiger explores the history of reported zombies in the real world.

"I have an account of a man from Miami who went to Haiti and was dancing with a very lovely Haitian lady, and he felt a little prick on his arm and didn't think anything of it. Next thing he knew, he woke up, was still in his suit and tie, but he was soiled and dirty and was holding a hoe in somebody's field.

"But he regained consciousness and managed to make it back to Miami. But this sort of thing still goes on with unscrupulous priests and priestesses. Generally, we're talking about a religion that is followed by 80 million people worldwide."

One man who took a "hands on" approach to the zombie culture is anthropologist Wade Davis. In 1982, Davis infiltrated the secret societies of Haitian voodoo, resulting in his 1985 eye-opening, international best-selling book (and subsequent movie) "The Serpent and the Rainbow" (Random House).

Davis investigated the most famous documented case of a reported real-world zombie, Clairvius Narcisse, who, in 1962, was pronounced dead in a Haitian hospital and later buried.

After 18 years, Narcisse showed up alive and told his story of having been drugged, buried, removed from a grave and put into slavery on a plantation with other men who allegedly shared the same fate.

"We have this case of Narcisse. From all scientific evidence, he was dead, and he came back into the realm of the living," Davis told AOL News. "Precisely because the scientists involved didn't believe in magic, there had to be a material explanation."

Davis explains that the Narcisse incident drew the attention of researchers back to "a series of reports found throughout the popular and academic literature of the reputed existence of a folk poison said to bring on a state of apparent death so profound that it could fool a physician."

Haitian bokors eventually gave Davis samples of the "zombie poison," which led him to zero in on a drug called tetrodotoxin -- the often deadly poison of a puffer fish.

"Tetrodotoxin turns out to be a very big molecule that blocks sodium channels in the nerves, bringing on peripheral paralysis, dramatically low metabolic rates and yet consciousness is retained until the moment of death," said Davis.

After a bokor has placed the tetrodotoxin into someone's body, and that person is pronounced dead and subsequently buried, the bokor reportedly unearths the body and applies a chemical paste to keep the unfortunate victim in a zombified, trancelike state.

Presumably, this "undead" person is then used as the bokor's slave labor.

Davis suggests it makes sense that some unscrupulous priests in Haiti would take advantage of such a poison.

"They identified in their environment a natural product -- in this case, a fish -- that had the capability of bringing on a state of apparent death.

"When I collected samples of the poison at several locations and found that these fish were the one consistent ingredient, it struck me that there was really something going on here."

That said, Davis doesn't believe there's an assembly line creating zombies in Haiti.

"What I always suggested in my work was that zombies, as an idea, by definition, exist in Haiti.

"All religion is defined by how people deal with the finality of death and the mystery of what lies beyond," said Davis. "Any phenomenon that walks that line and dances along that edge between life and death is fascinating to us."

Kim Paffenroth, a professor of religious studies at Iona College in Rochester, N.Y., has a slightly different perspective on the religious significance of zombies.

"I was 12 years old when the first 'Dawn of the Dead' film came out, so I had that adolescent male fascination with these things," said Paffenroth, the author of several books on the Bible and theology, including "Gospel of the Living Dead: George Romero's Visions of Hell on Earth" (Baylor University Press).

"And when, as an adult, I became interested in religious studies, I started looking at how the darker Christian themes of sin and evil are expressed in literature, art, film and television, and then the zombie stuff sort of made sense to me in a new way."

Paffenroth has an interesting take on why many people believe that zombies (among other ghouls, like vampires) signal a coming Armageddon to our world.

"It's a pretty perennial fear of the fragile nature of civilization. Every time there's an oil spill or a stock market crash, people get anxious, and, if anything, I think these more supernatural ways of dealing with it are a little safer outlet."

Paffenroth sees zombie films as a kind of heavy-handed critique of American society.

"I now realize, as I look at some of the fans out there, they look at zombie movies and they see the message as: 'Well, I need to own more guns, because then I'll be safe.' I can see where, on the surface, that's what the movies are saying, but it's kind of a really literal way to read it."

In his investigations, Steiger has come up with a theory about why zombies are generally depicted in end-of-the-world scenarios.

"A lot of people think the Apocalypse is just around the corner and many of us have been brought up to believe that the dead will raise from their graves on Judgment Day, which is why I think the zombie has reached this incredible surge."

Agree or disagree, it's undeniable that zombies are in the midst of a resurgence, the likes of which hasn't been seen since they emerged from the ground in George Romero's classic 1968 black-and-white thriller "Night of the Living Dead."

Whether they're starring in the popular 3-D "Resident Evil: Afterlife" film, playing the lead roles in AMC's upcoming series "The Walking Dead" or even fighting for the right of free speech, zombies are definitely in vogue.

And while there are some who speculate that a real zombie outbreak on Earth would be doomed to failure, there's at least marginal evidence that some form of zombie-ism exists and is taken seriously in Haiti (not to mention the creative minds of filmmakers).

So, the next time you find yourself alone in a field or a dark alley, it would probably be prudent to look over your shoulder -- you never know when you'll be menaced by something that's fairly easy to outrun.

"Sippin' Safari"

http://www.salon.com/mwt/food/eat_drink/2007/10/23/tiki/

"Sippin' Safari"
Cocktail fanatic Jeff Berry talks about mixing the perfect zombie, the allure of tiny umbrellas and other secrets of the tiki bar.
By Robert Simonson

Oct. 23, 2007 For many years, so-called tiki drinks were the punch line of the cocktail world. The quasi-Polynesian tropical concoctions served in the kitschy mugs and adorned with paper parasols couldn't get any respect in a world of elegant martinis and stately manhattans. Not anymore.

In recent years, as the cocktail revolution has gathered steam, mixologists and drink historians have taken the time to reexamine the zombie, the mai tai and their brethren. What they discovered was a lost universe of finely honed drinks boasting complex flavors and requiring as much skill to execute as any libation in the bartender's lexicon. Leading the charge has been Jeff Berry, aka Beachbum Berry, a former screenwriter-turned-cocktail expert who has gone to great lengths to uncover the lost recipes and bar histories of one of the defining drinking trends of the mid-20th century.

In his most recent book, "Sippin' Safari," Berry relates the origins of a bygone rum-soaked world, including the lives and adventures of its pivotal figures and cocktail creators, such as Donn Beach (aka Ernest Raymond Beaumont-Gantt), founder of the once phenomenally popular Don the Beachcomber chain, and Trader Vic (aka Victor Jules Bergeron). Berry talked to Salon about his life as a South Seas alcohol archaeologist.

You explain the phenomenon of umbrellas in drinks in "Surfin' Safari." Hawaiian bartender Harry K. Yee used them instead of sugar cane sticks, because they were easier to clean up. Do you approve of them as garnishes, or do you find them silly?

Here's my thing. I'm trying to be an evangelist for these lost drinks that were actually worthy, that could actually hold their own against all the other alcoholic inventions in this country. Then, someone has a visual image in their mind and says, "Are you talking about those drinks that come in those mugs with the umbrella?" It kind of works against me.

As much as I love tiki mugs -- and I have a whole collection -- I don't serve drinks in them. I want to see the drink in a glass. It's a legitimate drink in the same way a manhattan is. I want to see a zombie in a nice, tall, frosted glass where I can see the color of the drink.

How did you develop an interest in tiki drinks?

I grew up in the San Fernando Valley in the late '60s and there were a ton of these places. My parents liked Chinese food so they would go to this place, Ah Fong. It had opened in the early '60s as the Bora Bora Room, but whoever opened it spent so much money on decor that they went broke soon after they opened. There was this guy named Benson Fong, who was a Chinese restaurant magnate back then; he would move his Cantonese crew into Polynesian places if they couldn't recoup their costs, and rename them Ah Fong.

Anyway, as a 10-year-old I'd walk in the door and it was just completely all-encompassing and enveloping, this Hollywood-art-directed Polynesian theme. It was amazing to my young eyes. You just wanted to live there. And these people around me were drinking these exotic drinks. When I got old enough to drink, I sought these places out. And of course they had all disappeared at that point.

Yes, most of the tiki palaces are gone now, aren't they?

In L.A., there were so many of them for so long that a few have survived. I couldn't afford to go to any of them when I got out of school. Trader Vic's Beverly Hills location lasted right up until this year. Don the Beachcomber, the original, was there; it lasted until 1984. I lived around the corner from it at one point, but I couldn't afford to go until their last year, when they were advertising an all-you-can-eat lunch for $4.95. I finally got to go in and see that celebrity chopstick case.

Why do you think there isn't a major tiki bar in New York, which is supposed to be the cocktail capital of the U.S.?

Doing all my research, I found out that that cliché about New York thinking the tiki trend was tacky, and being above it all -- that's not true. New York had a ton of these places. It had the Hawaii Tai on Broadway, the Luau 400, which was very expensive, and they had a Trader Vic's in the Plaza Hotel, which Donald Trump famously got rid of when he bought the hotel. I think New York just burns through trends faster than other places.

The most famous tiki drink is probably the zombie. But my chances of going into a bar and getting an authentic zombie are pretty slim, aren't they?

Slim to none. The problem with the zombie is nobody knew how to make it. Donn Beach was a victim of his own success in keeping it a secret. Everybody says, "Oh, the zombie, that's an awful drink. It's just eight different kinds of rum. It's just a gimmicky, crappy drink." And the reason for that is because people were guessing. They were all just trying to guess what was in this thing, because Donn wouldn't publish the recipe. The reason we know that Trader Vic's mai tai is a good drink is because, despite the fact that there were a million awful mai tais out there, he printed the recipe himself.

Most tiki drinks have a rum base. What do you think of the theory that rum's place in the drink world today has been supplanted by vodka? So many popular fruity drinks are now built on top of vodka.

Yes. Not only that, but the rum market has been trying to become vodka for so long, that vodka has not only supplanted rum, but it's changed rum into becoming blander. It's "Bacardi: The mixable one." Rum really did have its day, though, from the 1930s, when the Don the Beachcomber thing got going, all the way into the late '70s, because even after the tiki bars died, there was still the piña colada and the frozen daiquiri. Cruise ship drinks, I guess you could call them.

You sought some of the tiki master bartenders who worked at the classic bars to get their stories. I bet they were surprised that anyone cared about their experiences.

Yeah, they were. For most of them, it was just a job and when the Polynesian thing dried up they just moved on to something else. Very few of them had a sense that this was anything else than just a way to make a living.

When I was writing the first books, it was incredibly difficult to get any information out of them. Their whole life was based on not giving these recipes out to anyone. They wouldn't give recipes out to anyone. I'd ask, "What's in this?" and they'd say, "Fruit juice." None of these guys had made one of these drinks in 40 years, but they would not part with the recipes.

Over the course of the years, you pried the secrets out of them.

It gets easier with every book.

You've said that there are only three places in the United States where you can still drink Don's original concoctions.

The Tiki-Ti in Los Angeles -- you can still get Don the Beachcomber drinks there. You have to know what drinks were served at Don's in order to pick one off the menu. A rum barrel or a panang or a montego bay.

The Mai Kai is in Fort Lauderdale. And the reason you can get Don's drinks there is the owners of the Mai Kai, when they built it in 1956, they poached a bartender from the Don the Beachcomber in Chicago specifically so they could get Don's recipes. They just tweaked the names of the drinks a little bit. The Navy grog became the yeoman's grog, like that.

The third place is a new place. I have not actually been there yet, but I've met Martin Cate, the guy who runs it. It's called Forbidden Island [Tiki Lounge] and it's in Alameda, which is in the San Francisco Bay Area. They're real Don drinks -- which he got from my books mostly.

-- By Robert Simonson