Yet again, Sally Shelton’s classic study "The Curious Deaths of Movie Museum Curators" (which was published in the May/June 1999 issue of the Annals of Improbable Research) has proved prophetic, at least possibly. Her study begins:
My colleagues and I have examined the museum community as it is shown in films. This is harder work than you might think. In looking at mystery, science fiction and horror movies (or, to use the highly educated technical term, creepy movies), you have to watch the whole movie and suppress the gag reflex. It?s not all that different from what we museum professionals normally do, anyway. In fact, suspense, speculation and horror are familiar to all of us who deal with annual budgets these days.
I concentrated in particular on mystery, sf and horror movies of the past fifty years…
Shelton ends with this pot-stirring passage:
It?s the public?s image of us that we see on the screen. If we don?t like what we see, we need to educate the public more or to start writing our own movies with a museocentric point of view. Or both.
The other alternative is to give the public what Hollywood says it wants. Methodically fill our museums with wicked things and diabolical curators, and then train the rest of the staff in how best to destroy the one and murder the other. I suppose that might not be bad for business.
The November 4, 2005 issue of The Australian carries a report about the death of Tom Loy:
Death as iceman’s curse cometh
Natasha Bita and Michael McKennaA MUMMY’s curse has cast its shadow over the death of a Brisbane scientist who worked to unlock the secrets of a 5300-year-old man frozen in the Italian Alps. A memorial service will be held on Monday for molecular archaeologist Tom Loy, who was found dead in his home a fortnight ago as he finalised his book on the world’s oldest mummy, dubbed Oetzi…
Most portentous is a related report, also dated November 4, by the Discovery Channel:
…Then last April it was the turn of historian Konrad Spindler, head of the
?tzi investigation team at the University of Innsbruck. He died, aged 66,
from complications arising from multiple sclerosis. After Simon’s death, Spindler had been asked if he believed the curse.
He replied: "No. Next thing you will be saying I will be next."Loy didn’t believe in the curse either, according to his colleagues at
Queensland University. The family confirmed that the autopsy results ruled out any suspicious
circumstances. "We have been told he died of natural causes or an accident, or a
combination of both," Loy’s brother was reported to have said.