The Museum is proud to bring you this edition of designs for “an intellectual and artful departure from the world” by featuring this sketch of a “hypothetic euthanasia machine in the form of a roller coaster, engineered to humanely – with elegance and euphoria – take the life of a human being.”

This is Art is Dead, literally.  Or maybe it’s a new remix to the remix that we should start curating about called “Art is Death” - whaddya think?

newsweek:

discoverynews:

Suicide by Roller Coaster

The 3-minute ride involves a long, slow, climb — nearly a third of a mile long — that lifts one up to a height of more than 1,600 feet, followed by a massive fall and seven strategically sized and placed loops. The final descent and series of loops take all of one minute. But the 10g force from the spinning loops at 223 mph in that single minute is lethal.

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The creator, Designer/Artist Julijonas Urbonas, tells Discovery he doesn’t see his suicide machine as being about death, but as “an intellectual and artful departure from the world.”

‘Cuz there’s beauty in a breakdown.

We’d like to present to you a wonderful website created some time ago called http://www.whenwillamywinehousedie.com/.  Here’s what the website has to say:

“We’ll all have a date with our maker someday, but Amy Winehouse just can’t seem to wait. She can write and sing a beautiful tune, but for some reason Amy has landed in a self-destruction derby. It is even rumoured that Amy and Pete are keeping the Colombian economy going. She simply looks like a cat’s asshole before it’s been dewormed. Amy is on her way out and as the world is profiting from this decline we thought it only fair that you should profit from it too. Guess her final breath and be crowned Mr. Or Mrs. Death. Winner will be rewarded with a iPod Touch.”

So now we wanna know… who won? 

Congratulations to whoever out there is now Mr. or Mrs. Death / is the owner of a new iPod Touch.  You really earned it!

We here at the Museum are very saddened to share with you that one of our most beloved Animal Scholars has passed away…

Paul the Octopus, the world’s most famous actually-existing octopus, had died this morning at his home in Germany.

According to Wikipedia:

Paul the Octopus (reportedly hatched January 2008 – 26 October 2010^[1][2]) was a common octopus from Weymouth, England who lived in a tank at a Sea Life Centre in Oberhausen, Germany.^[3] Paul became internationally famous for correctly predicting the winner of Germany’s seven matches at the 2010 World Cup, as well as the final.

Because of the sensitive nature of this saddening death, Wikipedia has attached the following message to the top of his Wikipedia page:

Additionally, you can find Paul the Octopus listed under the Significant Deaths of 2010 wikipedia page.

The Daily What gives us a little more information on this shocking death:

”He appears to have passed away peacefully during the night, of natural causes, and we are consoled by the knowledge that he enjoyed a good life here,” Sea Life Centre manager Stefan Porwoll is quoted as saying.

“We may decide to give Paul his own small burial plot within our grounds and erect a modest permanent shrine.”

Goodbye to you, predictor of German soccer matches, prophet of the sports world, provider of excitement and fame and octopus-love.

You will truly be missed, especially in Brazil in 2014.

The show described here had the working title “Veggin’ Out”, and while FOX may not have picked it up (and while the legitimacy of this article may or may not be questionable), all hope is not lost.  This could be Cinemax’s big break; they haven’t had much of anything going for them in a while besides soft core porn, and Showtime has been killin’ it with Weeds, Californication and that other show about the killer dad.

It’s time to bring PVS (persistent vegitative state) victims into the spotlight again, and this is the perfect avenue to do so.

Despite major attempts to keep things quiet, word has finally gotten out about the Obama death panels. As it turns out, in the future government beaurocrats are going to decide whether one should live or die. Kind of like the “Terror” (see French Revolution) but more systematic, sterile, and rational. Like, “youre old- stop hogging all the medical care so empoverished children can have a slice o’ that Amerrrican pie.”

What a crazy idea…putting a price tag on a human life…it must be foreign….

Anyway, since death panels are the way of the future and OBVIOUSLY what that commie Obama is argueing for, I’ve been doing some end of life planning myself considering I’m not a highly productive member of society (ie not curing cancer and/or outsourcing labor jobs to sweatshop slaves…I mean highly valued associates of our corporate team [except if they unionize in which case release the dogs]). Basically I’m not bringing home much bacon for the motherland which means that i’m an ineffcient use of funds…four out of five doctors on a deathpanel would probably reccomend my death.

In light of that, my top choices for where I want my funeral.

#1: Staples Center

I feel like this would really help everyone grieve. The world could pay their respects for the deceased during a half hour long internationally televised special (sponser’s name here__________).

#2: Second choice, superbowl half time show.

I don’t want people to feel bad when I die, like dia de los muertos. Life is a party, death should be one too. The more drunk people at my funeral the better I’ll feel about life.

#3: In my own house but I want my death to be dragged out for as long as possible in the tabloids with the headlines growing more grotesque with each passing year.

But seriously guys, respect the dead…by making as much money off them as you can…

What have we learned? In this century death isn’t funny….it’s hilarious.