The Isadora Duncan story from Wikipedia:

Duncan's fondness for flowing scarves which trailed behind her was the cause of her death in a freak automobile accident in Nice, France, on the night of September 14, 1927, at the age of 50. The scarf was hand painted silk from the Russian-born artist Roman Chatov. The accident gave rise to Gertrude Stein's mordant remark that "affectations can be dangerous."

Duncan was a passenger in the Amilcar automobile of a handsome young Italian mechanic, Benoît Falchetto, whom she had ironically nicknamed 'Buggatti' [sic]. (The marque of the automobile is open to dispute but the informed opinion is that it was an Amilcar, a 1924 GS model. It was regularly described and filmed as a more glamorous Bugatti.)."The automobile was going at full speed when the scarf of strong silk began winding around the wheel and with terrific force dragged Miss Duncan, around whom it was securely wrapped, bodily over the side of the car, precipitating her with violence against the cobblestone street. She was dragged for several yards before the chauffeur halted, attracted by her cries in the street. Medical aid was summoned, but it was stated that she had been strangled and killed instantly."
Yikes...cars are great, but BE CAREFUL friends.

regards,

jlex.

Hmmmm, ever live in San Gabriel Valley CA? We had a guy lose 1/3 of his hair to a spinning drill press.....in the 70s......he was a real rocket scientist, hope he didn't reproduce....:D

jlex, that's interesting!

Actually I heard about the 'Bugatti' from my wife when we walked by the Hotel Negresco on the Promenade des Anglais where the accident was said to happen. My wife was a fan of Ms Duncan and took the chance to give me a small lesson on trivial motor history. Sorry for the misinformation :-)

OK.....here's mine. I'll fess up to my stupidity. Recently I had my Webers off and on the bench, cleaning the jets, etc. While I was doing this, I had paper towels stuffed into the intake manifolds to keep stuff from falling into them. Well i remembered to remove the paper towels from most of the intakes, but...when i bolted everything together and fired it up, it ran great for a minute and then bogged down a little and shot flaming ashes and pieces of burnt/burning paper towel out the exhaust. Impressive in a very sad way.

regards,
al