Van Gogh Vodka and Ashes

Vincent van Gogh is buried at Auvers-sur-Oise, about 70 miles northwest of Paris, next to his brother Theo.  The cemetery is a 10 or 15 minute walk outside Auvers.  Van Gogh was put into a common grave with a 15-year lease.  Later there was money to move the body to a better spot, which is where he lies now.  Vincent's body was placed in a coffin made by the carpenter who had been supplying his picture frames.  Vincent van Gogh was a great painter - none greater, many think.

Tens of thousands, perhaps up to half a million, make a pilgrimage to his grave each year.  People leave sunflowers, irises, poems, drawings, and as is the custom in some cultures, food for the journey beyond.  The Japanese have a particular affection for van Gogh, perhaps because for a time he was interested in Japanese art.  Many Japanese travel each year across the world to his grave to leave, or to commingle with the earth of van Gogh's grave, the ancestral ashes of their own dear departed.  For much of the year, the thick ivy covering his grave carries a light coating of grey.  Russians who visit pour vodka onto the dark red soil of the same spot.

VA Cemeteries National Disgrace

In August, 2010 the Washington Post reported that an internal Army investigation found that 211 graves at Arlington National Cemetery were unmarked or misidentified.  After that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) decided to review all 131 cemeteries under its control.  So far the VA audit has revealed problems with 123 graves in 6 VA cemeteries in six states, including eight cases in which people were buried in the wrong site.   Most of the other mistakes consisted primarily of headstones and markers that were moved to the wrong graves during renovations, generally one space away from where they were supposed to be.  A smaller number of mistakes consists of missing headstones.  The VA has contacted affected families to apologize and to describe the corrections being made.  What would the repercussions be if this happened in non-VA cemeteries?

Bruegel / Hitchens

Pieter Bruegel:  "Because the world is so faithless, I go my way in mourning."  PB (1525-69) was a masterful Flemish painter, mostly of rural scenes.

The highly regarded English writer Ian McEwan was in the Texas hospital with Chritstopher Hitchens during his last days and saw him linked, online, to a celebration of his life in London.  "We helped him out of bed and into a chair and set my laptop in front of him . . . and what we heard was astounding, and for Christopher, uplifting.  It was the noise of 2,000 voices small-talking before the event," Mr. McEwan wrote.  "Christopher grinned and raised a thin arm in salute."

Irene Nemirovsky

Irene was arrested by French police on July 13, 1942 because she was a foreign Jew.  She died a month later in Auschwitz.  She is mostly an unknown even though she was a prolific and intelligent writer.  Irene was married with 2 children.  Her husband also died at Auschwitz.  Her writing style was matter-of-fact, not sentimental.  She was a moralist writer.  In life she was innately an optimist.  Nemirovsky is best known now for "Suite Francaise."  It was finally published only recently in 2004 and it became an international best seller.  Mr. Nemirovsky gave the manuscript and the couple's 2 daughters to a governess.  Both daughters and the manuscript somehow survived the Nazis.  One daughter, Denise, could not look at the manuscript for over 50 years.

Death Poems

There are many, many, many poems about death.  In different cultures it is a tradition for literate people to write a poem near the time of one's own death.  You see this often especially in China, Korea and Japan (beginning around 600 A.D.).  Enjoy this poem by Carl Sandburg:

Death Snips Proud Men by Carl Sandburg

DEATH is stronger than all the governments because the governments are men and men die and then death laughs: Now you see ’em, now you don’t.

Death is stronger than all proud men and so death snips proud men on the nose, throws a pair of dice and says: Read ’em and weep.

Death sends a radiogram every day: When I want you I’ll drop in—and then one day he comes with a master-key and lets himself in and says: We’ll go now.

Death is a nurse mother with big arms: ’Twon’t hurt you at all; it’s your time now; you just need a long sleep, child; what have you had anyhow better than sleep?

Exquisite Corpse/Cadaver

What comes to mind when you hear "Exquisite Corpse or Cadaver?"  Could it refer to a King, a Pope, a horse?  None of the above.  Rather it started as a parlor game.  It was amped up by the French Surrealists in the 1920's.  They called it cadavre exquis (exquisite corpse).  This phrase came from a sentence created in the initial playing of the game:  "Le cadavre / exquis / boira / le vin / nouveau" (The exquisite corpse will drink the young wine.).  Surrealists believed in the mystique of accident in the creative process.  So Exquisite Corpse was a collective collage of words, or images (for images a section of a body was assigned to each player).  Based on the old parlor game, it was played by several people, each of whom would write a phrase on a sheet of paper, fold the paper to conceal part of it, and pass it on the the next player for his contribution.  A collection of phrases/images is called The Morgue.   Ernst felt the results of the game came from "mental contagion" in/from a group of people.

Death of Your Xmas Tree Lio Comic

I have loved many of my Xmas trees!!

The Living Dead: Lehman Brothers

Companies/businesses live and die.  The Philadelphia Savings Fund Society died after about 200 years of life.  Look at Eastman Kodak.  It is basically on life support.  Filene's Basement is gone.   Remember Digital Equipment?  How about whale oil companies?  Sometimes defunct corporate names are bought and someone tries to bring back a company from among the dead, like Polaroid.  Lehman Brothers died in 2008.  Or did it?  Lehman's collapse was the visible beginning signpost of the meltdown in the financial world.  Lehman was the largest bankruptcy in history.  The Lehman Brothers estate is in its forth year of administration in Federal Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan.  It has liquidated $65 billion in assets and it has settled about $100 billion in claims.  It still has about $40 billion in assets to unwind and it has paid over $1 billion in fees and expenses!  Only on Wall Street.  Did all have the Lehman executives have to return their salaries and bonuses?  No.  When someone on Wall Street goes bankrupt or fails they often get a second chance.  And in the meantime they've made enough money by hook or by crook to live comfortably.

After You Die Say Hello/Goodbye

Apparently there are now apps that allow you to release a message to your survivors after you die!  Is this something Facebook offers?  I heard that you can say farewell, but perhaps you can say whatever you want.?

Staring Death in the Face

Last night my 70 year old mother-in-law died.  Or so I thought.  My wife was in the kitchen talking with her mother.  Suddenly my wife started screaming my name.  I mean screaming like I've never heard before.  I was in the middle of changing our about to be 2 year old son's poopy diaper.  I ran into the kitchen before finishing the job.  There was my mother-in-law, slumped over at the kitchen table, ashen and not breathing.  I called 911 and was put on hold for what seemed like an hour when in fact it was probably mere seconds.  Help came on the line and told me an ambulance was on the way.  The woman on the line was so calm.  And I was not.  Time was of the essence and the ambulance was nowhere to be heard.  I was told to administer CPR, something I had never done.  I only knew about it from stories I've read.  The 911 woman talked me through it.  I worked at it furiously, talking to and listening to 911 while doing so.  My mother-in-law's eyes were open yet vacant and she sure looked dead.  Suddenly her chest and her belly started moving again and choking sounds came out of her mouth.  911 told me she was revived and to turn her on her side.  My wife held her mother in place while talking to her non-stop.  I ran outside and flagged down the firetruck and ambulance that I finally heard coming.  6 or 7 EMT's came into the kitchen and calmly got to work.  After about 5 minutes they took my mother-in-law to a nearby hospital.  My wife followed the ambulance with her father to the hospital.  I looked in the mirror and I was ashen, and shaking, and crying a bit.  Death can happen so suddenly.  Today my mother-in-law is alive and conscious and aware in the local ICU.

Cimmerian Death

Cimmerian!  What a great word.  Per dictionary.com Cimmerian is an adjective.  It means "very dark; gloomy; deep" and "Classical Mythology.  Of, pertaining to, or suggestive of a western people believed to dwell in perpetual darkness."

Arthur Rimbaud in "A Season in Hell" wrote:  "I was ripe for death, and along a road full of dangers, weakness led me to the boundaries of the world and the Cimmerian land of darkness and whirlwinds."

Prisoner Burial Cemeteries

When many prisoners die in prison in America they are typically buried in state run cemeteries that are only for inmates who die in prison.  Apparently the cemeteries are stand alone and not on prison property, mostly.  The state (taxpayer) pays for the burials.  They are simple and average about $2,000 per burial including casket, grave, burial, funeral home, etc.  Usually living prisoners dig the graves and tend the grounds and mourn the deceased.  Often no family members attend or choose not to attend.  A warden or assistant warden typically attends each burial.  Memorialization is a simple cross or stone with the inmate #, date of death, and prisoner name.  There is no mention of what crime the inmate committed to land in jail.  If the crime was egregious enough only the inmate # will show on the memorial.