Curses! The Cool and the Coincidental

Curse of the Bambino

An obvious choice, to be sure, but I’m from Boston. Go screw. I wish they’d kept the “Reverse the Curse” sign on Storrow, if only because I considered it one of Boston’s only forays into public art that was remotely interesting and/or didn’t take five years of traffic obstruction to construct.

The Mummy's Curse

An all-time classic curse. THE all-time classic curse. You can’t even mention the word “curse” in a crowded room without nine guys coming up to you talking about mummies. Who cares if it was probably made up by British imperialists? Nobody’s 100% evil.

Madden Curse

Upshot: The player who appears on the cover of a given year’s Madden football game is injured, leading to a crummy season for his team.

An especially relevant curse considering this year’s cover girl is Brett Favre, whose season has already seen its share of tumult. I suppose we shall wait and see where the chips fall on this one. Tumult!

Poltergeist Curse

Everyone knows that Poltergeist is an excellent movie featuring breakout roles by “old guy” and “mud skeleton.” Did you also know it was cursed? Several people who acted in the three movies died in mysterious ways shortly following their production.

Except none of the deaths were all that mysterious except for one (and even that was a choking by a crazy boyfriend which totally isn’t that mysterious). Whatever. Poltergeists. Curses. Scary.

Hope Diamond Curse

This curse always seemed like a no-brainer to me. You hang out with a giant blue diamond ominously named “Hope,” you’re going to get a curse or two. It just comes with the treasure hunting-territory. Kudos to the Smithsonian Institute for building a curse-proof glass case.

I saw the Hope Diamond on a field trip to Washington in eighth grade. I took a picture of it, but I was too stupid not to know that the flash would reflect in the glass.

Curse of the Björketorp Runestone

There’s a rune stone in Sweden that supposedly dooms “he who breaks this monument” to “insidious death.” Sure, the only test of this curse is Swedish folklore, but it involves a guy being burned alive. That’s got to be worth something.

Ewing Theory

The excellently-named Ewing Theory comes from the idea that, once a perennial-contender-never-champion team’s star is injured or otherwise unable to play, the team will undergo a miraculous reversal of fortune. If you ask me, this isn’t a curse per se because it involves a reward. Unless you’re Patrick Ewing, Drew Bledsoe or Tiki Barber, I guess.

Curse of the Billy Goat

This is like a more hilarious version of the Bambino curse. Guy shows up at the Cubs’ pennant game with his goat. Game gets rained on, goat stinks up the joint, guy gets kicked out and curses the Cubs to never win another pennant. Cubs lose, guy writes hilarious letter to the Cubs saying “Now who stinks?” Cubs never win another world series. I chalk up this curse’s longevity to the charm and wit of its creator.

27 Curse

Bunch of well-regarded musicians die when they’re 27. I’m not a big Morrison fan and on certain days I think Joplin ruined a perfectly good Big Brother and the Holding Company record, but Jones, Hendrix and Cobain will always be cool. Ditto D. Boon, Dave Alexander, Fat Pat and Chris Bell. Eerie.

Kennedy Curse

Another classic curse tied to my fair city. This list item goes out to David Kennedy, who flew too close to the sun (read: grew up too rich and depressed) to know not to mix uppers, downers and antipsychotics.

Superman Curse

Bunch of people involved in the Superman franchise die or have their lives screwed up shortly thereafter. This is a pretty big stretch, though, and my favorite aspect of this Wikipedia page is the length the author/s went to in order to suggest it’s a curse. You mean the guy who played the villain in Superman 4 never starred in another movie? CALL A PRIEST

Tecumseh's Curse

The Tecumseh Curse is the idea that every president who is elected in a year ending in zero is assassinated. This held up from 1840 to 1960, but was broken by Ronald Reagan. MUCH LIKE REAGAN BROKE THE SPIRIT OF THE AMERICAN WORKING CLASS

AM I RIGHT

James Dean's Porsche

James Dean’s Porsche (awesomely nicknamed “Little Bastard”) has a Hope Diamond-esque curse to it, but besides the death of Dean himself it appears to hinge upon the car accidentally crushing a guy’s legs and a few other tangential accidents. This is a boring sham that doesn’t even merit its own Wikipedia entry and I am therefore completely open about it being a filler curse in this guide.

Night Court Baliff Curse

Two elderly women who played the same role on the same television show die of relatively natural causes somewhat soon after getting the role. This only qualifies as a curse because the television show was named something as spooky as “Night Court.”