Tag: 31 Days of Death

Categories
Death + Popular Culture Death + the Web

Day 31: And on Day 31 of 31 Days of Death the Death Reference Desk Rests

31 Days of Death
The Death Reference Desk

Today marks the final day of Death Ref’s 31 Days of Death project.

The plan was to demonstrate that it’s quite easy to write about, discuss, and point towards articles and information on death, dying, and the dead body — every day.

This is important since it challenges the always popular argument that death is a socially repressed and taboo topic.

The exact opposite is true. We 21st Century First World Humans talk about death every single day. We can’t escape it.

And we’ve got 31 Days of Death postings to prove it.

One last plug for Death Ref John’s August gig as the Morbid Anatomy Museum’s Scholar in Residence. Click here for a full listing of what he’s doing at the MAM.

Onwards.

Categories
Death + Biology Death + Technology Death Ethics

Day 30: Bringing the Dead Back to (Some Kind of) Life

9 Things to Know About Reviving the Recently Dead
Greg Miller, Wired Magazine (July 30, 2014)

Great article in today’s Wired about research by Dr. David Casarett on methods used to revive, resuscitate, and bring back the dead. Casarett’s work is in his new book called Shocked: Adventures in Bringing Back the Recently Dead.

Interestingly, Greg Miller at Wired notes that:

Casarett is enthusiastic about the emerging technologies that are allowing doctors to save patients who would have been a lost cause in the very recent past. But these technologies come at a cost, he writes. They may restore life, but whether it’s a life worth living is another matter.

And while Casarett originally became a Doctor so that he could develop new technologies to bring back the dead, he’s now working in hospice and palliative care.

Sometimes staying dead is better than the ‘life’ a resuscitated person experiences.

The Death Reference Desk has featured a series of stories on the ins and outs of Do Not Resuscitate orders. And DNR tattoos. You can find those posts here.

Categories
Death + Art / Architecture Death + Popular Culture Death + Technology

Day 29: Full Listing of Events for Death Ref John’s Morbid Anatomy Museum Residency

photo by Carl Newland

Morbid Anatomy Museum
424A 3rd Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11215

During the month of August, I will be the Scholar in Residence at the Morbid Anatomy Museum in Brooklyn.

My residency includes a series of films about death that I specifically selected for the MAM. It also features illustrated lectures about my research on death, dying, and the dead body.

Quick clue for Death Ref’s close personal friends: the films and the talks complement each other.

More than anything, I’m really excited to spend August at the Museum.

The complete listing of films and talks is below.

You can also click here to see August’s calendar on the Morbid Anatomy Museum website.

Tales from the Celluloid Coffin: A Death-themed Series of Film Screenings
Mondays 8:00 pm – 11:00 pm $5

 

August 4: Death, Dystopia and Technology Circa 1970

 

August 11: Death, Color and Memory

 

August 18: Necrophilia

 

August 25: Future Death Circa 1990

 

Illustrated Lectures on Death, Dying, and the Dead Body
Wednesdays 8:00 pm – 11:00 pm $8

 

August 6: Future Dead Body Technology

 

August 13: Morbid Ink: The Permanence of Memorial Tattoos

 

August 20: Abusing the Corpse: Understanding Necrophilia Laws in the USA

 

August 27: The Future is Death and Death is the Future: Technology, Politics, and the Dead Body

Categories
Death + the Law Death Ethics

Day 28: Full Transcript of House of Lords Debate on Assisted Dying

Assisted Dying Bill: 2nd Reading on July 18, 2014
United Kingdom House of Lords Hansard (Published July 21, 2014)

The UK’s House of Lords has now published a full transcript, or Hansard, of its July 18, 2014 debate on assisted dying.

You can read more about that day’s debate here.

You can also catch up on all 5+ years of Death Ref’s posts on assisted dying here.

Just remember, the July 18 debate took 9 hours and 43 minutes to complete and involved 133 speakers.

The transcript is a bit long. That’s all we’re saying.

Categories
Cemeteries Death + Humor

Day 27: On Sundays, the Death Reference Desk Kicks It Cemetery Style

Does the Death Reference Desk know how to party, or WHAT?!

Categories
Burial Cemeteries Grief + Mourning

Day 26: Photos of London’s Afro-Caribbean Funerals

'Mourners singing We'll Meet Again. Andrew Shervington, who is digging, was a community leader in Notting Hill during the race riots. The typical songs sung round the grave were Abide With Me and How Great Thou Art. Now, people tend to play Frank Sinatra's My Way or Luther Vandross's Dance With My Father instead.' At Kensal Rise, London, 1972. (From the Guardian article)

How great thou art: 50 years of Afro-Caribbean funerals – in pictures
Charlie Phillips, in The Guardian (July 25, 2014)
The spirituals sung, the Scotch bonnet berets worn, and the rum drunk at the graveside … Charlie Phillips’s photographs chart the rituals and the changes in African-Caribbean funerals in London since the Windrush generation, to preserve a part of British culture he feels has been overlooked. Here Phillips recalls the stories behind some of his most striking images

Any large city will always have a migrant population that dies and then fuses its own funeral traditions with the status quo.

These photos by Charlie Phillips of funerals in London’s Afro-Caribbean community are stunning.

If you’re interested, you can support his kickstarter campaign to create a book of these images.

Above image by Charlie Phillips.

Categories
Death + Technology Death + the Law

Day 25: Death Row Prisoners’ Final Statements and Meals

From America’s Busiest Death Chamber, a Catalog of Last Rants, Pleas and Apologies
Manny Fernandez, The New York Times (June 29, 2013)
Texas has executed 500 inmates since 1982 and posts the final statements of those men and women on a public Web site, revealing a glimmer of humanity behind the numbers.

 

Last Words of Prisoners on Death Row
Will Coldwell, The Guardian (July 2, 2013)
Since reinstating ‘ultimate justice’ in 1982, the state of Texas has kept a record of the final statements of condemned prisoners. Here are some of the most memorable.

 

Why the Death Penalty Is Doomed
Jesse Wegman, The New York Times (July 24, 2014)

 

No Seconds
Henry Hargreaves Photo Reconstructions of Final Meals

America’s use of the Death Penalty was in the news again this week.

Here is a quick snapshot of some articles from last year on death row prisoners’ final statements.

I’ve also included a New York Times Taking Note blog piece by Jesse Wegman on a fascinating legal argument by a Judge who supports the death penalty but thinks that ultimately the practice will end. Why? Because the idea of a ‘humane death’ is proving increasingly difficult to maintain and returning to the guillotine (which worked very well) isn’t feasible.

Finally, photographer Henry Hargreaves’ reconstructions of final meals on death row are hard to forget. Something about the everydayness of the food makes the images stick in your memory.

Categories
Afterlife Death + Popular Culture Defying Death

Day 24: How Praying Really Hard and Grave Sucking Might Help Raise the Dead

Deadraiser
Directed by Johnny Clark (October 04, 2013)

 

Evangelical Christians want access to more corpses … to hone their ‘raising the dead’ skills

Barry Duke, The Freethinker (March 10, 2014)

 

The people who believe in medical miracles
BBC News Magazine (March 10, 2014)

 

What is Grave Sucking?
Michael Boehm, Youth Apologetics Training (February 12, 2014)
Helping teens understand and defend Christianity. Helping parents train up their young in the faith.

Last February and March I started collecting information on Evangelical Christian groups that believe in the power of prayer to resurrect the dead. It’s not an entirely new idea for Christianity (e.g. Jesus) but its supporters have ebbed and flowed over the centuries.

One of the new groups that’s involved is called the Dead Raising Team.

Filmmaker Johnny Clark made a documentary about the Dead Raising Team and you can watch the doc’s trailer at the top of the page.

Slightly before I came across the Dead Raising Team, I encountered a somewhat connected but different practice called Grave Sucking. Michael Boehm, writing for the pro-Christian Youth Apologetics blog, explains that:

Grave sucking or mantle grabbing is the belief and practice of pulling the supposed Holy Spirit powers from the dead bones of a previously empowered believer.

Not much else to say, really.

It’s worth noting, I think, that Boehm doesn’t support Grave Sucking and thinks that it’s, um, impractical.

Then again, ‘miracles’ do happen. Just last February a man was declared dead in Mississippi only to wake up inside a body bag. This could also be a case of a less-than-rigorous end of life medical exam.

http://vimeo.com/63016718

Categories
Death + Art / Architecture Death + Humor Monuments + Memorials

Day 23: Death Ref John as a 19th Century Postmortem Photograph

Professor Bellows Photography
Mall of America, Minneapolis, MN (USA)

In summer 2006, Argentinian artist Ana Lois-Borzi and I collaborated on a postmortem photography project.

Ana and I both lived in Minneapolis at the time and we had gotten to know each other through the local art scene. Our earliest encounters were at Gus Lucky’s Art Gallery on East Lake Street, which is sadly long gone.

We decided that we wanted to create 19th century-style postmortem photos of each other but we didn’t want to use her studio. So, we did the only logical thing we could. We went to the Mall of America’s old timey photo studio (linked to above) and paid to have one of their eager-to-please employees take our photographs.

The catch was this– we didn’t tell the photographer what we were doing so we became ‘dead’ right as the photo was taken.

Ana Lois-Borzi Postmortem Photograph

It was obvious to us both, that Ana was far better at becoming dead than me. It’s in the hands, we both agreed. My hands don’t look very dead. Ana’s hands = totally dead.

We had plans to travel around the United States so that we could visit as many old timey photo studios as possible.

Alas, I moved and we put the project on hold.

But one day, and hopefully soon, we’ll both go back to being photographically dead.

Categories
Death + Architecture Death + Popular Culture Death + Technology Monuments + Memorials

Day 22: People Taking Selfies at the 9/11 Memorial, because #America

Adrian Tomine 'Memorial Plaza' New Yorker Cover July 7 & 14 2014

Selfies from the 9/11 Memorial
Leah Finnegan, The Awl (July 21, 2014)

Let us begin Day 22 of the 31 Days of Death posts with an immediate thought: Of course people are taking Selfies at the 9/11 Memorial. Even if photography was banned at the site, people would still sneak Selfies. Why? Because the expression ‘photos or it didn’t happen’ is both a joke and a serious sentiment. How does a person document, not just a visit to a place, but actually show that he or she was really, truly in that specific spot? Answer: with a Selfie; the kind of photo that an individual can autonomously take without having to ask a complete stranger (since that would be weird) to snap a picture.

You want proof that I personally experienced this amazing unforgettable Memorial space? Then here you go– a Selfie of me #standingstrong.

The entire reason that this is a story, and analysed extremely well by Leah Finnegan on The Awl, is the 9/11 Memorial’s inclusion. But for the events of September 11, 2001 and the ensuing struggle to actually build a memorial in lower Manhattan, these Selfies could be in almost any major city’s downtown landscape featuring enormous urban waterfalls.

I have a hunch that the 9/11 Memorial Selfies story is going to unleash a fury of responses, not unlike last year’s Selfies at Funerals brouhaha (which Death Ref covered in-depth).

After a while, then, the shouting (or really really really self-righteously indignant tweeting) will cease and people will continue taking Selfies at the 9/11 Memorial. Until people stop visiting the Memorial and even forget why it’s there. This won’t occur in my lifetime, but it will most certainly happen. #nofilter

The Memorial and Museum have both come under criticism for many different reasons. I visited the 9/11 Memorial site in April 2014 (alas, no Selfies…) and it’s a memorial, yes, but a memorial surrounded by a police state. The metal detectors, the armed police officers watching the crowds hustled through entrance areas surrounded by barbed wire, and the high metal fences that encase the entire site in an unwelcoming embrace are my strongest memories.

When the 9/11 Museum opened this spring it generated immediate criticism for daring to have a giftshop. Again, of course the 9/11 Museum has a giftshop. And even a Cafe.

In fact, I bet people take Selfies at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum Giftshop and Cafe. #NomNom!

New Yorker staff writer Adam Gopnik’s essay on the Memorial and Museum is one of the best pieces that I’ve read about the site’s complicated politics. I highly recommend it.

Adrian Tomine created the cover for that particular New Yorker issue (July 7 & 14, 2014) and calls it “Memorial Plaza.” The cover is at the top of the page and I think that I’m violating several copyright laws by using it, but Tomine truly captures the visual human experience of the 9/11 Memorial.

Indeed, a couple is taking a Selfie front and center. #NeverForget

Categories
Death + Crime Death + Disaster Death + the Law

Day 21: Dealing with Dead Bodies in Mass Fatality Events

Dutch Investigators Finally Gain Access to MH17 Remains
Caroline Bankoff, Daily Intelligencer (July 21, 2014)

Last week’s shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in the Ukraine has become a rolling demonstration of what’s not supposed to happen after a mass fatality event involving dozens of dead bodies.

For various reasons, I’ve participated in mass fatality response workshops so watching what is clearly a crime scene go uninvestigated by professionals is maddening.

At a minimum, there should be portable mortuaries/morgues up on the site. An international cohort of pathology technicians, forensic investigators, law enforcement officials, dental experts, sniffer dog teams, general support crews, and even funeral directors should be on hand for Disaster Victim Identification or DVI.

These are only some of the groups I would expect. There would actually be more and the whole operation would need a central command.

All of this is to say, that what’s happened in the Ukraine has become a textbook example of worst case scenarios.

The whole situation has also reminded me of previous Death Ref stories on the different kind of mass fatality responses in both Haiti and Japan. You can read those posts here.

I’ll update Death Ref with any relevant information I see on MH17.

Categories
Death + Popular Culture Death + the Law Death + the Web

Day 20: Patrick Stewart Campaigns with Assisted Dying Supporters

Actor Patrick Stewart joins campaign for ‘assisted dying’
BBC News (July 18, 2014)

Somehow, and I don’t entirely know the reasons, I completely missed these interviews with actor Patrick Stewart on the recent House of Lords assisted dying debate.

He’s got clearly articulated personal reasons for supporting Lord Falconer’s bill and understands how the proposed legislation would work. I also give him credit for supporting a cause that I can imagine some talent agents might suggest you avoid.

That said, he’s the kind of actor (and big name movie star) who doesn’t flinch when it comes to supporting causes he believes in.

Good interviews to watch.