The Last Performance
At a funeral home death is something that may become a daily routine. And it is also where some kind of performance is taking place. ‘The last performance’ is a behind-the-scenes look at the place where funeral rites are prepared. Directed by Jorge Tur Moltó. On Vimeo here.
The Last Outfit
Posted by Charles These last outfits were chosen by some of the 23 people taking part in a photo project initiated by The Straits Times, the leading Singapore daily, in partnership with Lien Foundation, a Singapore philanthropic house. Entitled “The Last Outfit”, the project showcases individuals in the clothes they wish to wear for their […]
Burial views from a faraway country
Posted by Kathryn Edwards Serbia’s been generating news of late, featuring the Old Carnivore and the Young Herbivore (as one local commentator has characterised the players). While Djokovic nibbles the Wimbledon lawn and Mladic huffs and postures in the Hague court, there’s been a lot of grave-digging taking place in a former meadow just outside […]
Picking up the patriarch’s ashes
James Showers, sole proprietor of the Family Tree Funeral Company, undertaker to the discerning decendents of Gloucestershire, has been badgering me to rediscover something he lost on his computer. He thought it might be on mine, since I once sent it to him. It’s not. But by dint of indefatigable googling I have unearthed it. […]
Fogey funerals
There are two ways of looking at it – aren’t there always? Either funerals, by loosening up, jettisoning the f-word and calling themselves celebrations of life, are becoming more meaningful, more expressive of what people want to express; or they have become merely conventions of gaudily-clad denialists engaged in an altogether silly and fruitless buck-u-uppo […]
Smoothie
I enjoyed this blog post from an American woman living in Paraguay. Her husband is some sort of religious minister. Here’s the custom out there: In the jungle, among the Ye’kwana tribe, burials also had to be done quickly. If the family was christian, the dying person would be allowed to remain in his hammock […]
Burning issue
There was much excitement when Davender Ghai won his case for open-air cremation at the Court of Appeal in February 2010. It established the legality of the principle of open-air cremation but, as Rupert Callender noted at the time: “this is only a battle that has been won, not the war. The next impenetrable ring […]
Newsy morsels
Two really nice stories here. First, a marvellous and extraordinary insight into funerals in Gaza — community, ritual and politics. Here. Second, the ten most loathsome lunacies of the Westboro Baptist Church (the GOD HATES people), who are so biblecrazy they once protested outside a shop selling Swedish vacuum cleaners after a Swedish pastor was prosecuted for being horrible […]
She’s on 29
Have you been following Gail Rubin’s 30 funerals in 30 days? I hope so. If you haven’t, you can easily catch up. Go over to her site as soon as you’ve read this and take up where you left off. The cultural differences are intriguing. The preaching at religious funerals in the US is hotter. […]
Death in the community
This put a spring in my step. It is extracted from a letter to the Irish Times: I never cease to be amazed at how we Irish continue to celebrate and embrace death so excellently. The morgue is now giving way to families’ increasing desire to bring the body home for a wake, not just […]
