Talking about death — at any age — is a fantastic idea and a great way to break down fear and loathing.
Don’t fear the reaper
Tag: funerals
We could learn a lot from jazz funerals
Jazz funerals offer an intriguing look into another way of commemorating death and acknowledging community grief.
Compost me!
Burial and cremation are old news: Find a more ecologically-friendly way to dispose of your carcass, and consider doing something nice for the planet while you’re at it.
Crowdfunding basic life expenses?
Every day, scores of crowdfunding campaigns sweep across my social media accounts. There are the games, the art projects, the books, the things that people want to make happen because they’re fun or interesting or do something important for the world, and I contribute to these now and then, to a project with portraits of […]
Pop culture and the modern funeral
The funeral is an everpresent force in pop culture, particularly on television, where in long-running serial storytelling, people at some point have to die—from a cynical perspective, to drive the plot forward, but also from a purely practical one, to accommodate actors who want to leave programmes before the end. This means that we tend to […]
The funeral industry may start running scared of alternative death
When funeral homes began to rise in the early 20th century, they forever changed the nature of death in the United States. Now, the alternative death community is eager to force that change back, to empower people to make their own decisions about living and dying in a country where most deaths take place in […]
Commercialising the alternative death movement
The alternative death movement is a growing and amazing thing. It may have started with a heightened awareness of the commerce of death and an interest in less costly approaches to burial, and progressed to green cemeteries and environmentally conscious death, but it’s also taking on a wider scope. It’s encouraging consumers to empower themselves, to […]
Putting the ‘fun’ back in ‘funeral’
Life, in many ways, is ridiculously hilarious, and that doesn’t stop in death. Yes, that’s right — I am among the group of people who proudly put the ‘fun’ back in ‘funeral,’ acknowledging one of the most important and inevitable life events we will face with a more lighthearted spirit. There is nothing funny, of course, about […]
A Poor Economy Means More Unclaimed Bodies
Throughout human history, the body has held special significance to numerous cultures, and ceremonies have been performed around and with the body for centuries. ‘Laying the body to rest’ is an integral part of the grieving process, and a great deal hangs upon it. Whether it’s a rain-drenched funeral with all the trimmings or a […]
The High Creep of Funeral Costs
One of the great outcomes of the publication of The American Way of Death was increased consumer scrutiny of a lot of topics relating to funerals, including extremely high costs. Mitford’s expose pointed out that funerals were ridiculously expensive, and not only that, but many funeral directors preyed on consumers with very sleazy, transparent tactics […]