The Saturday Zeitgeist

Every week, Google.com publishes the Zeitgeist, an index that tracks the popularity of search requests fielded by Google’s industry-leading Internet search engine. As Google’s label suggests, the lists capture “the spirit of the times.” To decode this spirit, the Post’s Marni Soupcoff explains some of the more intriguing entries in this week’s instalment.

Anneliese Michel

Given that she died back in 1976, it is quite a coup that West German Anneliese Michel has managed a place on this week’s Google charts. The key is that her life and death were the loose inspiration for a popular new movie, The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

Sadly, the fame is far too late to do Michel — who suffered from epilepsy and severe mental illness — any more good than the futile exorcisms she underwent at the behest of her parents shortly before her death at the young age of 23. The more sophisticated medications now available to treat seizure disorders and psychotic breaks might have made the distraught woman’s life more bearable had they been around then. But as it was, she was left to wither away from starvation, a victim of her own ailing mind, a compulsion for self-mutilation and the failure of those around her to get her the help she needed. Dementieva It looked like there might be a little battle brewing between attractive Russian tennis player Elena Dementieva and her French rival Mary Pierce. After Pierce beat Dementieva at the U.S. Open semi-finals last week, Dementieva came out complaining that Pierce had faked an injury just to get a couple of long timeouts. No doubt hoping for a good catfight, Googlers were immediately intrigued. But as it turned out, Dementieva backed down (“she beat me that day because she was the best player, full stop,” Dementieva eventually said of Pierce) long before anyone could hit anyone else over the head with a tennis racquet.

There will be a good chance for the two women to make up this weekend since they’re expected to face each other at the Fed Cup finals. But will Dementieva lose it if Pierce stubs a toe and takes to the bench for a lengthy band-aid break? Fans of female feuds can only hope. Roger Federer

Unlike Ms. Dementieva, Swiss tennis player Roger Federer has had neither reason nor time to whine about his opponents; he has been far too busy wiping the floor with them. Federer recently cruised to a U.S. Open victory, with only Andre Agassi putting up any kind of real competition. That left the world No. 1 Federer with three Grand Slam titles for the calendar year — a feat that hasn’t been

achieved since 1988.

Indeed, things have been going so well that even Roger Federer is feeling impressed by

Roger Federer, telling reporters, “I don’t know

if I can play any better... It’s incredible.”

It would be tempting to accuse the

man of immodesty,

but his glowing assessments of his own performance are so darn accurate that the criticism would would hardly be fair. Adrian Karsten

Dark and depressing though they may be, tales of suicide tend to fascinate, especially when the dead are people who have attained some level of celebrity. No doubt that is why so many Googlers were searching for information about former ESPN reporter Adrian Karsten this week, after reports surfaced that authorities had ruled his death a suicide. Why did Karsten take his own life?

We’ll never know what was going through his mind, of course, but even a quick Google search offers an obvious surface explanation: Karsten was due to report to federal prison early this month to serve out a sentence for tax evasion. It seems reasonable to

imagine that the stressful anticipation of being locked up

for 11 months had something to do with his death.

Perhaps Karsten would at

least have been comforted

to know how curious people

are about what became of him.