Fatboy grim
Another gangster funeral story. Why another? Because gangster funerals are the other side of the coin of state or royal funerals. They offer spectacle. Freshly interred in Australia is Carl ‘Fat Boy’ Williams. The convicted drug smuggler and murderer was just six years into a minimum 35-year sentence when he was beaten to death with […]
Glarin’ or hollerin’?
Since most progressive developments in funerals are reinventions of or reversions to past practice, it’s always a good idea, now and then, to peer into the mists of history and see if there’s anything that can be plucked out, dusted down and dressed up for the 21st century. The funeral mute, for example. Men dressed […]
Fast track to eternity
Clever guy, that Shakespeare. He foresaw the viral capability of the internet long before the invention of the penny post. Here’s Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream: “I’ll put a girdle around the Earth in 40 minutes!” Which is as long as it took young gunshot victim David Morales Colón to travel around the world […]
