Get Low
Here’s a very interesting looking new film. Synopsis follows. Hat-tip to Liam Roberts for this. For years, townsfolk have been terrified of the backwoods recluse known as Felix Bush. People say he’s done all manner of unspeakable things — that he’s killed in cold blood; that he’s in league with the Devil; that he has […]
The terrible price of longevity
Here’s an incredibly powerful and superbly written account from the New York Times about the consequences of life-extending interventions by medics. It begins: One October afternoon three years ago while I was visiting my parents, my mother made a request I dreaded and longed to fulfill. She had just poured me a cup of Earl Grey […]
Nokanshi
I had an email today from someone in Atlanta, Georgia USA. Is there any funeral home in this area, she wondered, that practises nokanshi. I explained that I couldn’t help: the GFG is UK-based. Then I googled nokanshi. And discovered that it is the ritual preparation, in Japan, of the body for cremation. There’s a […]
Last Portrait of Mother
In case you missed it, Daphne Todd’s portrait of her dead mother won the BP Portrait Award. There is a good account of how it came to be painted and why in the Independent here.
Hardening of the heart
What happens to the minds of those who deal with death every day? How do they cope with the endless procession of grieving people and dead bodies? Is it emotionally healthy to specialise in death? Isn’t undertaking something best combined with a therapeutic something else – a little landscape gardening or, in the case of […]
Test drive it first…
Here’s an intelligent, beautifully written piece from Salon magazine in which the writer describes the consequences of his father’s final request No. 5: “My body is to be placed in a plain pine box. I would like my children to make the box.” In his last years my father, the writer William Manchester, told me, […]
Does poetry make nothing happen?
The Tide Recedes The tide recedes, but leaves behind Bright seashells on the sand. The sun goes down, but gentle warmth Still lingers on the land. The music stops, and yet it lingers On in sweet refrain. For every joy that passes Something beautiful remains. MD Hughes What do you think of that little poem? […]
Hollowing out hallowed ground
Some interesting reflections here on humankind’s relationship with the dead human body and the forces of nature. I especially enjoyed the observation that the prairie dogs happily digging in this cemetery are no respecters of social status: they have even dug up a state governor. What deplorable absence of deference so far down the food chain! Hat-tip […]
A Good Send Off
A Good Send Off was the title of this year’s Centre for Death and Society (CDAS) annual conference. Well, part of the title – the snappy part. In full it read: A Good Send Off: Local, Regional & National Variations in how the British Dispose of their Dead. It took place last Saturday in Bath. […]
The Sunset coffin
“Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.” There’s a funeral industry variant on this saying. Substitute ‘coffin’ for ‘mousetrap’. Last week I went to see Sunset Coffins. Its development is the outcome of a partnership between an environmentally conscious funeral director and ironmonger, Jeremy Clutterbuck, and an engineer, […]
