Reblogged from Comically Vintage.

Reblogged from obsidian obelisk.

A brush with death brings a man face to face with his own fear of death, a fear that he is ultimately unable to come to grips with - at least by the end of his essay.  It’s an honest and searching look into the black hole that is death.  A worthwhile read.

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“the funeral industry estimate that around 1% of cremated remains are not claimed” via the new shelton wet/dry

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Reblogged from antologia portatile dei fatti notevoli..

Meghan O’Rourke had an excellent piece in the Feb 1 issue of the New Yorker that examines the way the Elisabeth Kubler-Ross opened up an American conversation about death and dying, and taught us the five stages people often go through when their approach to death becomes unavoidable (starting with denial of course).  What the article gets into though is how the popularity of this model grew because it made death seem so orderly and controllable, while the reality is much messier.  The article also talks about her work on grief and grieving and what contemporary psychiatrists and science are teaching us about how we grieve, and how varied our responses are to grief, and then she puts this in the context of our contemporary culture which has largely stopped performing traditional ritualized mourning procedures.   The article concludes with the interesting observation that although Kubler-Ross did more than anyone else to start a conversation about death, even she could not handle the terrible harshness of death and presented a model of death and grieving that could at times be more about self-help platitudes than the harsh reality that so many experience.

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Cab Calloway - St. James Infirmary (via wontoofreefore)

Well folks, I’m goin’ down to St. James Infirmary, 
See my little baby there; 
She’s stretched out on a long, white table, 
Well she looks so good, so calm, so fair. 

Let her go, let her go, God bless her, 
Wherever she may be, 
You may search this whole wide world over, 
But you’ll never find another sweetheart like me. 

Take apart your bones and put ‘em back together,
Tell your mama that you’re somebody new.
Feel the breeze blowin’,come on, look out, here it comes,
Now I can say whatever I feel like to you. 

Then give me six crap-shootin’ pallbearers,
Let a chorus girl sing me a song.
Put a little odds on old Sweet Grace,
Hallelujah, as we go along.
WELL

Well folks, now that you have heard my story, 
Say, boy, hand me another shot of that rye; 
And if anyone else should ask you, 
Just tell ‘em I’ve got some of those St. James Infirmary blues.

"Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night."

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Reblogged from Automat Yque.

Reblogged from Automat Yque.

Reblogged from Automat Yque.

BORN to BONE on Vimeo (via Vimeo)

Excellent animation that takes us from birth to death.