Winchester Zombosium

On the BBC World radio broadcast this afternoon, I heard an interview with Dr Marcus Leaning of the University of Winchester, regarding their upcoming Zombosium in Winchester this weekend.  The Zombosium will study the popular appeal and how the media focuses upon zombies in film, TV, youtube, video games, etc. 




Now, before you dismiss this anecdote as "just zombie related", silly & superfluous, I propose the following theorem:  "We are all zombies, or are all fighting against zombies, in one degree or another". 

• If you own your home, is the mortgage underwater?  Or perhaps in a stagnant real estate market where your home's value is not growing? If so, you are a financial zombie.

• If you rent where you live, is your land lord benevolent, accommodating, forgiving, congenial without being over-bearing or intrusive?  Is your rent low, or even reasonable? Or can you not wait until your lease ends and you can get the heck out of there?  If so, you may be a rental zombie, shuffling through time until your lease finally ends.

• If you are fully employed, have you been getting awesome raises each year, with awesome bonuses, that you've worked hard for and have earned?  Or have you worked hard, or maybe hardly worked, and your wages have risen 3%, 1%, or 0%?  If so, you are an indentured zombie; working hard, Fast Zombie like 28 Days Later, hardly working, slow Sean of the Dead like zombies.

• Are you under-employed, or employed in the United States and you have no health insurance, because you don't live in Massachusetts, Vermont, or San Francisco?  You are trying to keep from getting sick because you can't afford a trip to the emergency room?  If so, then you are a zombie-in-waiting, or a "stasis zombie".  One good accident or injury, and you'll fully embrace being a zombie too.

The best Thelma & Scooby depiction, Ever

• If you are a die hard Republican, and you're not LDS or not a Billionaire who has embraced Mitt Romney, and your preferred candidate can't seem to break into double digits in the polls and probably won't even be considered for a vice presidential slot in 2012?  If so, you are somewhat of a conservative zombie.

• If you voted for Barack Obama and hoped for change and a reform of the corrupt federal political system which has strangled the middle class in America, and instead have seen a continuation of Bush's policies, with one iFold after another from your winning President and his party of collapsing spelunkers, and you are more than slightly disappointed at one failure after another to stand up to the orange man, the whiner from Virginia, and the oligarchical fraternity known as The Family?  If so, you are a disillusioned progressive zombie.

So you see, whether you ARE a zombie yourself, or your neighbors have already been bitten by one, or perhaps you have friends or family who have been affected... you are among zombies.  Zombies are not glorious or sexy or attractive in any way.  They are repulsive, nasty and slowly decaying.  Zombies are voracious, and they don't stop, until Winter freezes them, or they decompose to the point of no longer being ambulatory, or you take out their brain stem - the old reptilian vestige that evolved into the wondrous brain bouncing around inside of each of our craniums today.  And having such a zombie threat all around us, that we cannot (legally) lash out against, is more than a little bit frustrating.  So seeing the protagonists in Zombieland, The Walking Dead, or a myriad of other vehicles take out the living dead, fight against the over-whelming forces that are trying to devour them... well...  I can see the appeal in that.


Tip of the hat to Dr Zaius for several of the images on this page.  May he continue to fight against the imposing zombie horde to his last simian breath.