You are free to move about the cabin

In my last post, I remembered the doomed girlfriend of Captain Kirk from one of his many timetraveling love affairs. She was a cute 1930s girl, passionate and intelligent, but not intelligent enough to know that you should never date anyone 2,000 years younger than yourself. So what happened? She got run over by a car as he looked on, the jerk.

But let’s leave aside my still smoldering indignation. The poor kid met a fate that might be called kinetic death. Not cinematic, but kinetic.

Since it’s back to school time, time for a pop quiz. So, boys and girls, get out your pencils and match the famous figure with the kinetic nature of his or her demise:

1) Roland Barthes

2) Isadora Duncan

3) Antoni Gaudí

4) King Henry I of Jerusalem

5) Eleazar Maccabeus

6) Grigori Rasputin

7) Lawrence of Arabia

a) thrown in a river, after surviving three shots to the head, three to the body, and a thorough bludgeoning

b) motorcycle crash

c) defenestration

d) hit by a laundry truck

e) scarf caught in a moving hubcap

f) crushed under falling elephant

g) nailed by a streetcar

Answers Monday.