but now that you've made me think about Elephant Man, I'm going to just go cry in my closet for days.

I was in maybe third grade when I ran across a photograph of a plaster cast of John (I know, Joseph, but there captioned as John) Merrick's face. Horrorstruck, I quickly shelved the book without more than glancing at the text, which seemed mostly to describe bone and flesh deformities. But I was compulsive about information, so a few weeks later I went back and read the surrounding pages. Then I felt really bad about slamming the book shut on him.

It's an excellent film; I watched it earlier tonight. John Hurt is one of my cult heroes.