23 February, 2007

Beyond Human: The Final Call

Remember this guy and his Away Team? I certainly do!



I like how he says, "Rather than give you any history," (around the two-minute mark) and then immediately follows it up with, "Well, I'm going to back up and give you some history." Also: Referring to yourself in 3rd person is a surefire way to make yourself look really, really strange. And don't get a haircut like that, for goodness sake!

I'm doing a research project on Heaven's Gate for my Feminist Inquiry class (I know, an odd match, right?), and a good friend of mine found this little gem for me. (Hat tip to Sabine for finding this for me when my unskilled self couldn't!)

Here are some fascinating tidbits on the cult that were not exactly covered by the mainstream media:

* The leaders' names for themselves (Marshall Applewhite was "Do" and Bonnie Lu Nettles was "Ti") were chosen from the musical scale, as Applewhite was a former music professor at a university in Texas.

*Applewhite was once a moderately sucessful opera singer (!)

*The cult ran a computer consulting and website design business in Southern California for a number of years, and were remembered by various clients as being very polite, obedient and helpful.

Fascinating, huh? Okay, not the fact that they all killed themselves, but some of the other stuff. I find this sort of thing so interesting!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I nearly responded "OH I LOVE CULTS!" which sounds wrong. I find cults infinitely fascinating, as I know you do.

I see a lot of time wasted at Wikipedia in my immediate future.

annaham said...

:D

I love this kind of stuff, and yet I was only able to write 4 pages for a 6-page rough draft that's due today...