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I bought two new Chuck Klosterman books over the weekend, Killing Yourself To Live: 85% of a True Story and Chuck Klosterman IV, presumably after the fourth Led Zeppelin album. One of the more interesting footnotes in Killing Yourself to Live concerned the question in the previous poll. The footnote added that people almost invariably gave one of two answers; most people answered that the man at the funeral was the widow's sister's husband, and she wanted him to herself, but schizophrenics always answered, "Because she wanted to have another funeral so the man would show up again."
Out of 29 people who answered, 12 gave a "sane person" answer. Nobody except for people that already knew the trick gave the "schizo" answer. A lot of people thought that the sister had been the one to kill the husband, and I'm not sure what to make of that.
Some of the best answers:
"the sister need to leave town because of gambling debts and framed the widow. it was a purely circumstantial case. no body was ever found."
"fun and pleasure"
"Because it turned out that her sister had murdered her husband, perhaps to cover up the affair the sister was having with that husband."
"Gotta do somethin'"
"She has to sacrifice a blood relative to join the new boyfriend's cult."
"Her sister knows why... that whore."
"because her sister killed her husband and then she and the widow had an epic sword fight a la Kill Bill"
"I. I. Because her sister was an alien trying to steal her new boyfriend for expiramentation?"
"The man wasn't real--she'd developed some sort of trauma-based psychosis. The man "told" her to kill her sister."
"because she's ugly"
Either:
A) My friends are a new kind of crazy that hasn't quite been diagnosed
or
B) My friends are very good at responding to vague questions by creating unique narratives that reflect what they know, see, and think about the world.
Out of 29 people who answered, 12 gave a "sane person" answer. Nobody except for people that already knew the trick gave the "schizo" answer. A lot of people thought that the sister had been the one to kill the husband, and I'm not sure what to make of that.
Some of the best answers:
"the sister need to leave town because of gambling debts and framed the widow. it was a purely circumstantial case. no body was ever found."
"fun and pleasure"
"Because it turned out that her sister had murdered her husband, perhaps to cover up the affair the sister was having with that husband."
"Gotta do somethin'"
"She has to sacrifice a blood relative to join the new boyfriend's cult."
"Her sister knows why... that whore."
"because her sister killed her husband and then she and the widow had an epic sword fight a la Kill Bill"
"I. I. Because her sister was an alien trying to steal her new boyfriend for expiramentation?"
"The man wasn't real--she'd developed some sort of trauma-based psychosis. The man "told" her to kill her sister."
"because she's ugly"
Either:
A) My friends are a new kind of crazy that hasn't quite been diagnosed
or
B) My friends are very good at responding to vague questions by creating unique narratives that reflect what they know, see, and think about the world.
