Categories
Death + Humor

The Weird Book Room

deadpeople
The Weird Book Room has a little something for everyone. As part of the larger AbeBooks.com, this little corner of the website offers titles you may or may not find in your local library, neighborhood bookstore or even the thrift store around the corner. Most are downright obscure—and probably out-of-print to boot in many cases. Some, like Twinkie Deconstructed (which I admit to reading), was published just a few years ago and is hardly rare. But here they all are, collected for your amusement and yes, your purchasing enjoyment.

What kind of books can one find in the Weird Book Room? Funny you should ask. Titles such as Why Do I Vomit?, 50 Sad Chairs and Is Your Dog Gay? are just the tip of the iceberg. The death-related titles aren’t quite the gutbusters, but worth a browse with such titles as Dead Pet: Send Your Best Little Buddy Off In Style, An Incomplete History of Funerary Violins, and my personal fave, People Who Don’t Know They’re Dead: How They Attach Themselves to Unsuspecting Bystanders and What to Do About It. We have that last title in our collection at Multnomah County Library and I checked it out, but it was so bad I couldn’t even get through the first 5 pages.

Christmas is coming and Hanukkah too. Perhaps a copy of Jewish Chess Masters on Stamps is in order?

Categories
Burial Funeral Industry

Death Objects on Video from the MN Historical Society

Minnesota Historical Society Funerary Objects
Matt Anderson, MNHS Curator (October 19, 2009)

Just in time for Halloween. The Minnesota Historical Society presents the following video on Funerary Objects from its own collection. Many state historical societies have these kinds of objects in storage. It’s always interesting to see how they present them and when. Halloween, of course, is a logical (if not too easy) mark.

Categories
Death + Biology Grief + Mourning

No Tittering of Mourning Magpies

Magpies Hold Funerals for Fallen Feathered Friends
Lester Haines, The Register (October 21, 2009)

Animal Emotions, Wild Justice and Why They Matter: Grieving Magpies, a Pissy Baboon, and Empathic Elephants (paid access only)
Marc Berkoff, Emotion, Space and Society (August 27, 2009; doi:10.1016/j.emospa.2009.08.001)

Reporting on an unfortunately toll-access article from the journal Emotion, Space and Society, Lester Haines at The Register relays the claim that magpies appear to hold rituals for dead pals:

Dr. Marc Bekoff observed four magpies alongside a fallen comrade, and recounted: “One approached the corpse, gently pecked at it, just as an elephant would nose the carcass of another elephant, and stepped back. Another magpie did the same thing. Next, one of the magpies flew off, brought back some grass and laid it by the corpse. Another magpie did the same. Then all four stood vigil for a few seconds and one by one flew off.”

Similar behaviors have been observed in other magpies, as well as in ravens and crows. Unfortunately The Register article is brief and the real deal’s under lock and key (well… $9.95). Several readers have weighed in in the comments, however, and probably without reading the actual research, many dismiss the claim as bad science and overt anthropomorphism, an accusation Beckoff has previously countered with, “It’s bad biology to argue against the existence of animal emotions.”

Hear, hear! (Full disclosure: I am closing in my 10-year anniversary as a vegetarian.)

Then again, I do enjoy rigor in my rigor mortis research — I’d like to know more about it. As for the post title, I love animal / social group names. Everyone knows it’s a murder of crows, many, an unkindness of ravens. Magpies are a gulp, tiding or tittering. Tee hee! And no one would be laughing at a funeral. At least not these magpies.

Categories
Death + the Economy Death + the Law

Witness for the Execution

One Reporter’s Lonely Beat, Witnessing Executions
Richard Pérez-Peña, New York Times (October 20, 2009)

The NY Times ran an interesting article yesterday about an AP reporter who has witnessed more executions than any other person in America. His name is Michael Graczyk and since the 1980’s, he has seen over 300 executions in Texas, although in actuality he has lost count. Due to the faltering economy, Mr. Graczyk is one of the few journalists left doing this type of reportage.

Although Mr. Graczyk takes a generally dispassionate approach to his work, he recalled one particularly chilling incident.

One inmate “sang ‘Silent Night,’ even though it wasn’t anywhere near Christmas,” Mr. Graczyk said. “I can’t hear that song without thinking about it. That one really stuck with me.”

Categories
Death + Humor Death + Popular Culture

Hot Human on Dinosaur Action…with Pictures

The Death Reference Desk’s good friend Joanna Ebenstein at the Morbid Anatomy Library in Brooklyn is into the hipper, cooler, creepier side of dead stuff. That’s why Death Ref likes her so much.

So when Joanna invited me to give a talk on Monday, October 26 at the Morbid Anatomy Library I said YES YES YES.

But the whole story gets even better. I know. Who knew it was possible?

Instead of my usual death…death…dead bodies…bla bla bla action I am giving a talk on the Creation Museum in Petersburg, KY. The talk is full of hot human on dinosaur action and I have photos and video to boot.

Come on down to the Morbid Anatomy Library and be SAVED!!!!

Here is the official announcement:

Morbid Anatomy Presents at Observatory:

“Humans riding on the backs of Dinosaurs: A walk through the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky USA.”

by John Erik Troyer, Ph.D., Centre for Death and Society, University of Bath

Date: Monday October 26th
Time: 7:30 PM (doors at 7:00 PM) *please note earlier than usual start time*
Admission: $5

Creation Museum

In May 2007, the twenty-seven million dollar Creation Museum opened in Petersburg, Kentucky. The museum is dedicated to representing a “young earth,” Christian explanation of the planet, which makes the known universe roughly 6-10,000 years old. Within the museum, visitors can view a large-scale Garden of Eden diorama, a fully loaded planetarium, and animatronic dinosaurs. Since opening, well over 835,000 people have visited the museum. The Creation Museum is a key player in what Troyer calls the American Science War and is part of an ongoing battle between advocates of Evolutionary Biology, Intelligent Design, and Creationism.

This presentation closely (and humorously) examines the relationships between Creationism, Intelligent Design, and Evolution in America by giving a pictorial tour of the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky. There will also be artifacts from the museum for your perusal.

Creation Museum

Biography:
Dr. John Troyer is the Death and Dying Practices Associate and RCUK Fellow at the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath. He received his doctorate from the University of Minnesota in Comparative Studies in Discourse and Society in May 2006. From 2007-2008 he was a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Comparative Studies at The Ohio State University teaching the cultural studies of science and technology. Within the field of Death Studies, he analyzes the global history of science and technology and its effects on the dead body. He is a co-founder of the Death Reference Desk website and his first book, Technologies of the Human Corpse, will appear in late 2010.

DIRECTIONS TO OBSERVATORY: ***PLEASE USE NEVINS ST./PROTEUS GOWANUS ENTRANCE***

Observatory is located at 543 Union Street at Nevins St., in the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn. The entrance is currently through Proteus Gowanus gallery, in the alley off Nevins St (see below for full details).

R or M train to Union Street in Brooklyn:

Walk two long blocks on Union (towards the Gowanus Canal) to Nevins Street. 543 Union Street is the large red brick building on right. Go right on Nevins and left down alley through large black gates. Proteus Gowanus is the second door on the left.

F or G train to Carroll Street:

Walk one block to Union. Turn right, walk two long blocks on Union towards the Gowanus Canal, cross the bridge, take left on Nevins, go down the alley to Proteus Gowanus, the second door on the left.

For more information, see observatoryroom.org

Categories
Cemeteries Death + Art / Architecture Monuments + Memorials

Spring Break 2010: Take A Tour of Nine American Cemeteries

American Cemeteries
MSN City Guide

My mom sent me this MSN piece on some really cool American cemeteries. In case you’re curious, my mom sends me lots of articles about death, dying, and dead bodies. She also sends me articles on tattooing but that’s another story.

Cool American Cemetery

I will be in Washington, D.C. next week and I plan on visiting Arlington National Cemetery.

In fact, I think that it’s important for people to visit cemeteries all the time. Walk around the grounds, touch the stones, and just listen to the silence. I find cemetery visits exceptionally relaxing.

This might be a little too Harold and Maude for some people but so it goes.

Support your local cemetery.

Categories
cremation Death + Technology

Japan Goes… Library Tech? with Urn Storage and Retrieval

Japan’s New Hi-Tech ‘Graveyards’
Jason Rhodes, Reuters (October 13, 2009)

via Treehugger, “Japan’s High Tech Graveyard Solution as Burial Space Grows Scarce” (Jaymi Heimbuch, October 15, 2009)

Due to scarcity and high cost — sometimes more than $100,000 — for urn burial plots in Japan, storing cremation urns in space-saving warehouses is growing in popularity. Such buildings contain special mourning areas where loved ones can swipe a card with the deceased’s location; a robotic arm will retrieve the urn from the vault and deliver it the mourning area, complete with somber music, flowers and video screens showing photos of the deceased.

The video above is in Japanese; whether or not you understand it, you still get the gist. I can’t get over how much this is like high-tech library deep storage, such as UBC’s Automated Storage and Retrieval System. Yes, it’s seen as cost-effective, and even has the ever-popular green slant and humorous old man approval: from the BBC article,

“One of the things to consider is the price, it’s reasonable,” said Toshio Ishii, who at 82 years old was looking for his own grave. “And I think it will be nice to be stored with other people. It’s more fun, there’ll be company.”

Categories
Death + the Economy Funeral Industry

Death and the Economy: Too Many Unclaimed Dead Bodies for the Body Farm…

Indigent Burials Are on the Rise
Katie Zezima, The New York Times (October 11, 2009)

Regular readers of the Death Reference Desk will recognize that the nationwide increase in indigent burials is a significant trend. Since this summer, when Death Ref launched, we have routinely posted articles on the uptick in unclaimed dead bodies under the Death and the Economy category.

The lead from this most recent New York Times article sums up the entire situation:

Coroners and medical examiners across the country are reporting spikes in the number of unclaimed bodies and indigent burials, with states, counties and private funeral homes having to foot the bill when families cannot.

What makes this article a little different than the others is that it presents some hard facts and figures on the wave of unclaimed bodies.

  • Oregon has seen a 50 percent increase in the number of unclaimed bodies over the past few years.
  • About a dozen states now subsidize the burial or cremation of unclaimed bodies, including Illinois, Massachusetts, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
  • Financing in Oregon comes from fees paid to register the deaths with the state. The state legislature in June voted to raise the filing fee for death certificates to $20 from $7, to help offset the increased costs of state cremations, which cost $450.
  • Already in 2009, Wisconsin has paid for 15 percent more cremations than it did last year.
  • Boone County, Mo., hit its $3,000 burial budget cap last month, and took $1,500 out of a reserve fund to cover the rest of the year.
  • The medical examiner of Wayne County, Mich., Dr. Carl Schmidt, bought a refrigerated truck after the morgue ran out of space. The truck, which holds 35 bodies, is currently full, Dr. Schmidt said. “We’ll buy another truck if we have to,” he said.

These numbers present an interesting unclaimed dead body index, but the following point really jumped out at me:

  • In Tennessee, medical examiner and coroners’ offices donate unclaimed remains to the Forensic Anthropological Research Center, known as the “Body Farm,” where students study decomposition at the University of Tennessee. The facility had to briefly halt donations because it had received so many this year…

The Body Farm at the University of Tennessee was specifically built to study how dead bodies decompose in order to assist criminal investigations. The Body Farm needs, by its very definition, dead bodies to operate; even it (a place which requires corpses to function) had to stop accepting unclaimed bodies because there were too many of them.

I want to stress this particular point: There were/are too many unclaimed dead bodies for even the Body Farm…a place solely built to study dead bodies.

It is difficult to say where this situation goes next. I don’t expect to see the unclaimed corpse trend reverse anytime soon and, indeed, I expect it to go even higher. What I do think will happen, down the road, is that more and more of these unclaimed bodies will end up in bio-medical tissue products. But that is a post for another day.

Categories
Burial Monuments + Memorials

Poe’s Funeral Draws Hundreds

Edgar Allan Poe Finally Getting Proper Funeral
Ben Nuckols, Associated Press (October 6, 2009)

The late Edgar Allan Poe had a memorial service Sunday, October 11, in Baltimore, Maryland. Yes, that late Edgar Allan Poe—the beloved American writer of the macabre who has been dead for 160 years.

Hundreds of mourners in period dress, including Alfred Hitchcock and H.P. Lovecraft impersonators, paid their respects to the man whose first funeral, following his mysterious death in 1849, fetched only a handful of attendees. The memorial service Sunday — there were two, actually, to accommodate all the mourners — was one of many events celebrating his 200th birthday.

To see some footage of the Poe replica and procession, including some retro morphing effects in the ABC video, check out the links below (it seems to be popular lately to disable embedded video… jerks).

160 Years After Mysterious Death, Edgar Allan Poe Gets Proper Funeral (ABC)

Second Send-off for US Writer Poe (BBC)

Edgar Allan Poe’s Final Send Off (Reuters)

At the beginning of the ABC video, I twice saw an ad for a mouse trap — count yourself lucky if you watch it, too: “Nothing to see, nothing to touch, you just throw it away.” …Because that’s just how we like our death: disposable.

Categories
Death + Art / Architecture Death + Popular Culture

Lecture on Dead Animals at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program
Death Ref’s own John Troyer and artist Roxanne Jackson in Dialogue
Minneapolis Institute of Arts
2400 Third Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN
Thursday, October 15, 2009 7pm (FREE)

I love my job. I will be giving a talk at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts on all dead creatures great and small. And preserved. It is a conversation with artist Roxanne Jackson about her newest solo exhibition at the MIA. Here is the official announcement:

buffalo

On October 15, we are excited to announce that Dr. John Troyer, Death and Dying Practices Associate at the Centre for Death & Society, University of Bath, will be talking about Roxanne Jackson’s work in relation to taxidermy and technologies of preservation.

An ambitious new Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program (MAEP) solo exhibition by local artist Roxanne Jackson explores the complex nuances between animals and humans. The show, “We Believe in Some Thing,” on view through November 1 in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts’ two MAEP galleries. Jackson’s ceramic sculptures, wall installations, and video explore human and animal interaction but also critique the assumed polarized differences between humans and animals. She asks, among other questions, “Are we more alike than different?”

dead animals

It is a free talk, open to the public and I promise highly entertaining. I know from dead animals.

I might even bring my own private taxidermy collection to the talk. I know. I really have a private taxidermy collection.

Categories
Burial Death + Biology Eco-Death

How Dead Bodies Become Beetle Juice

To Casket Or Not To Casket? One Of America’s Great Field Biologists Thinks About Burial
Robert Krulwich, NPR (October 9, 2009)

NPR science reporter Robert Krulwich (also of RadioLab fame) did this short piece (it’s a little over five minutes long) on the decomposition of dead animal bodies and their consumption by beetles. He interviews Professor Bernd Heinrich, an expert on all things animal, insect and decomposition. Check it out!
SextonBeetle_wide
I am all for being left to rot in the woods after I am dead. Based on my current body size, I bet I could feed thousands of beetle families. It would be my way of giving back to the natural world.

Categories
Death + the Economy Funeral Industry

Death and the Economy: Unclaimed Bodies Fill the Detroit Morgue

Detroit: Too broke to bury their dead
Poppy Harlow, CNNMoney.com (October 1, 2009)

This CNN story on Detroit is heartbreaking. The economic situation in Detroit is horrible enough, but this particular dispatch says more about the financial straits of life and death than anything I have seen.

Over the summer, the New York Times ran an article on why home burials were a sign of the recession. I wrote about it here. The unclaimed dead body situation in Detroit is a much more profound statement about the economy than home burials.

Not only can families not afford to retrieve a deceased loved one because of the cost (even if they want to) the Wayne County Morgue does not have enough money for the final disposition of the bodies. So the bodies all remain in cold storage, waiting for something to happen.

Watch this video attached to CNN article:

Articles about the economy and death have been a re-occurring theme the last few months. This article got published in Green Bay, WI: Unclaimed cremated remains accumulate at Allouez cemetery.

Unclaimed Cremated Remains in Green Bay

Earlier in September, the New York Times ran an article on Wall Street investment firms buying and selling elderly and ill persons’ life insurance policies: The Back to Business: Wall Street Pursues Profit in Bundles of Life Insurance.

And this AP article discusses a subject that I assumed would pop up eventually: Weak economy sparks rebirth of funeral sciences.

Then there are these stories: that the economy is actually good for some funeral homes because of increased mortality rates…

The video is the lead to this article about a Dallas, TX funeral home: At Golden Gate Funeral Home, Bodies Are John Beckwith Jr.’s Business, And Business Is Booming.

But when push comes to shove, and the economy gets really really bad, there is always Craigslist…

COFFIN
Date: 2009-07-20, 10:59AM
Guaranteed to keep your Goth hide translucent white during these hot and bright summer days, this hand-made coffin is just right for the petit Vampire or Vampette. If you are just under 5 feet tall (or can shape-shift to something smaller) with a 29-inch wing span, you will feel cozy and safe sleeping away the pesky daylight hours with this tasteful but unassuming box tucked away in your lair.

Goth Coffin

Your minions can keep your chamber mobile with these fine handles made of Transylvanian hemp and the tucked and buttoned red padded lining will have you snoring until sun down. The hand-painted, one-of-a-kind, whimsical take on a Coptic cross is certain not to offend any version of Goth, vamp or even warm-blood who might have the privilege of actually seeing your private chamber.

It’s hard to let this beautiful treasure go, but we’ve just run out of room. And with all of the sensible people around (see True Blood), we just don’t need to be so private anymore. It can be found and taken for free in the 3400 block of Barranca circle near Mt Bonnell. Better hurry though. It is Big Trash week in our neighborhood.