Contest Heat-Up, Production and Rasputin

It's amazing what can be accomplished with perseverance, promotion and research. Today's line-up has been pretty interesting for me when it comes to things I've managed to do since about ten in the morning. Yes, that is early for me. I'm a total night owl, so for the first hour or so I was doing nothing more than playing around with a PC game. Well, that and I had an appointment for my disability stuff. I started doing some more promotional stuff today, to hype the contest we're having right now for The Kovacs Literary Perspective. If you're a writer and you weren't already aware of the contest, check it out. We're offering a free, 15-minute promotional interview vodcast for authors who have published a book. It doesn't matter if it's through a traditional publisher, or it's self-published. Details and instructions on how to enter are at the above link.

We're in our final phase of research when it comes to what programs we plan to use to produce the new show, which means +Steve Kovacs and I will probably be doing a few video chats to get things down to a science, but that's okay! There's a good reason people watch The Kovacs Perspective already. He's a great interviewer and someone I enjoy talking to tremendously. He's got a lot of enthusiasm for what he does, and that comes across not only to the audience, but also to the guests he has on the show. Now, it's not likely you're going to see snippets of our conversations on our YouTube channel, because I tend to be a bit camera-shy. That's going to suck for me when it comes time to promote my own books, but it's the price I'll have to pay. Y'all are just going to have to wait for that special occasion to see what I'm like on the air. There's a reason I blog rather than vlog these posts.

It looks like the station that broadcasts The Kovacs Perspective will be on hiatus for the month of July, and this is apparently an annual thing they do for upgrades and maintenance, which is actually perfect timing for us. It wasn't confirmed for me until yesterday, so I was already lining up the guests for next month, but this break gives us a chance to judge the contest winner, and do our final video testing, as well as recording the winning entry's promo video. We'll be featuring the winning author's video on our website for the entire month of August. July is going to be a busy month, even with the break from the original show.

Strangely, in amongst my research and self-training today, I stumbled upon some very interesting details regarding the murder of Rasputin. There's just something strange about the way my brain works. I got a line in my head from Ghostbusters 2, quoted as spoken by the evil Vigo, where he was reputed to have said, "Death is but a door, time is but a window. I'll be back." Well, I was somehow putting that together with the line from The Mummy - "Death is only the beginning." I wanted to verify for myself which line came from where, so I Googled it (of course). For some reason a web page on Rasputin came up. That really caught my attention.

I think there was just a comparison to the character in Ghostbusters, however, because it didn't actually say Rasputin had said that. It was more about how hard it was to kill him. Vigo was supposedly shot, hung, stabbed, stretched, drawn and quartered, or something to that effect. It's been a while since I watched the movie, so I don't remember it exactly. I do remember taking Rasputin in school when we were studying Russian history, and most people would admit that he was a fascinating character. There was a lot of mystery surrounding his death. There was more than one person involved, and although two people admitted to killing him, it was another member of the extended Romanov family, apparently, who was exiled for the crime.

Now in the original reports it was stated that he was poisoned, as well as beaten, shot and drowned. There are also reports that he was dug up from the family's private cemetery and burned, only to sit up whilst being torched. Some of this is true, but I was rather stunned to learn about recent information that has come to light with regard to his death.

For one thing, there was no active poison found in Rasputin's body. They may very well have attempted to poison him with the food and wine he was served, but he simply did not partake of the provisions. There is a process by which people can inure themselves to certain natural poisons. It's called mithridatism. It doesn't work with synthetics, and it doesn't work with all poisons, so I certainly don't recommend that anyone try this at home. Most poisons will either build up over time in your body and eventually kill you, or the doses are so low as to have no impact on your ability to build a resistance to them.

The reason I bring up this practice is because it was rumoured that Rasputin did this, and that was the theory posited as to why he was supposedly immune to being poisoned - at least by those who did not believe he had mystical personal properties. However, according to the records recently found with regard to his autopsy, poison simply wasn't a factor. He was shot four times in total. The third bullet (which was considered to be the fatal shot, as it went into his head) is now believed to have come from a British weapon, fired by an SIS agent. Very interesting forensic science turn of events, and entirely plausible in the grand scheme of things, considering the first World War was a factor. You see, Rasputin had great influence, and was convincing the Tsar and Tsarina to withdraw from war. This would have meant the allies were vastly outnumbered. The Tsarina being of German descent, this was a real fear. According to available documentation, there were three SIS agents commanded to assassinate Rasputin to remove him as a threat to the war effort.

This information kind of blew me away, personally, because this was not something they taught my class. It simply wasn't known at the time, as far as I'm aware. This is all new, and it confirms something amazing for me, about history in general. The supposed 'facts' are always changing and being challenged. We have the ability to test for things now that we didn't have even twenty years ago. If I remember correctly, even Albert DeSalvo was posthumously exonerated of one of the murders he was convicted of through DNA testing of the remains of Mary Sullivan. Granted, the entire case of The Boston Strangler is rife with inconsistencies, and there's a great deal of doubt as to Albert DeSalvo's actual guilt in the whole affair.

Getting back to Rasputin, though, one of the things that may very well have been true was actually what seems the most incredible - his body sitting up while it was being burned. You see, when tendons and such are burned, they will contract. If the people who burned his remains practiced improper cremation techniques - basically simply burning his body without cutting the tendons - the legs would have pulled up, the arms would have bent, etc. When remains are found that have been burned, they're in what's called the pugilistic pose, which is like a fetal position with the arms up as though the victim were in a boxing match. At least one set of remains from Pompeii were found cast in that position from what they termed thermal shock.

All in all, today has been a very educational day for me. Thankfully I'm not a cat, or my curiosity would have killed me by now.