xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
In November, prominent, occasionally self-mutilating performance artist Marina Abramovic, 59, performed “covers” of other performance artists’ seminal works (with their permission) in her “Seven Easy Pieces” show at New York City’s Guggenheim Museum. In one, according to a New York Times profile, she covered her head in honey and gold leaf, cradled a dead rabbit, and whispered to it about pictures on the wall (original artist: Joseph Beuys). In another, she lay on a bed above lighted candles and made cuts on her fingers while slides of women painting their nails flashed on a screen (original artist: Gina Pane). However, she was stymied by the denial of permission for her fondest proposed “cover”: Chris Burden’s 1973 piece in which his hands were nailed to the roof of a Volkswagen as it was rolled out of a garage.
Police Blotter:
From the Union Democrat (Sonora, Calif.), 11-20-05: “Big Oak Flat. A woman said an exhaust system stolen from her vehicle was returned and reinstalled.”
From the Peru (Ind.) Tribune, 10-14-05: “(A) caller … told the (sheriff’s office) a man was in the middle of the road. The man told officers he was looking for his tooth that he lost yesterday while eating peanuts. He thinks he may have tossed it out the car window while he was tossing out peanut shells.”
If the December robbery of a pharmacy went down the way McMinnville, Ore., police believe, it indicates the suspect, sheriff’s deputy David Verbos, 36, had little respect for their crime-solving ability. Verbos allegedly took OxyContin at gunpoint in the robbery, but later called the McMinnville police to report that someone had stolen his license plates (perhaps hoping to insulate himself in case a witness had glimpsed the plate at the scene). However, when police arrived to take a report, they noticed that Verbos, a stocky man about 5-9, was wearing a black jacket, gray sweat pants, and white sneakers, thus fitting nearly dead-on the description of the man who had robbed the pharmacy.
(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or [email protected] or go to www.NewsoftheWeird.com.) NEWS OF THE WEIRD