by Justin Nobel
What happens when a bum dies? Most states bury them, but last month, Illinois announced it no longer has the money to do so. The state’s Department of Human Services pays for about 10,000 burials a year, at a cost of $15 million.
Putting the poor to rest in a sanctioned spot is common practice across the United States. New York Cities’ indigent are buried on an island by prisoners from a nearby jail who get paid 25-35 cents an hour for their labor; Cleveland’s poor are laid to rest in a mown field surrounded by forest and many of New Orleans’ poor end up in Holt Cemetery, where bodies are actually buried underground (uncommon in New Orleans, which sits below sea-level) and decorated with planter boxes and bed frames.
Graveyards of the poor and criminal are known as potter’s fields and date back to Haceldama, a cemetery in the Valley of Hinnom, outside the Old City of Jerusalem, whose name means “field of blood.”
According to the bible, when the traitorous Judas turned himself in to the chief priests he threw down 30 pieces of silver. The money was regarded as tainted and rather than be accepted directly by the church, it was used to purchase a plot of land for the burial of strangers. From the accounts of St. Peter, Judas was one of the first occupants: Read the rest of this entry »
by Justin Nobel
Egypt's 70 million mummies powered early trains and composed a popular nineteenth century paint known as mummy brown, a pigment between burnt and raw umber. The last batch was concocted in 1964 by a British supplier who lamented,
“Families wanting a lasting celebration of their loved ones’ memories can now consult with an international artist who will lovingly mix a portion of their family member’s ashes into the colors of a custom painted modern art piece picture.”
The “modern art piece pictures” are known as Art in Ashes and can be ordered from memorial.com, along with slightly offbeat funerary items such as pet urns and memorial garden rocks.
The ash painter is a German-born woman named Mona who presently resides in Texas, by the sea. Mona has “years of formal training in abstract techniques at art schools across Europe (Munich, Karlsruhe, and even Rome) and has traveled the globe (Asia, Canada, the U.S. and most regions of Europe).”
Mona’s style may seem grisly but painting with human remains has precedent. England’s Pre-Raphaelites used a color called mummy brown, a pigment between burnt and raw umber, derived from the ground-up remains of Egyptian mummies. Read the rest of this entry »
by Justin Nobel
Michael Jackson's after-death has been relatively normal, considering. British aristocrats have had their hearts stolen and their heads put on sticks. (Photo by Justin Nobel)
Michael Jackson is still missing his brain but it has been a pretty normal after-death, considering. The afterworld of royalty can be much stranger…
Sir Thomas More was beheaded in 1535 for refusing to acknowledge the legitimacy of Henry VIII’s marriage to Anne Boleyn. More’s head was taken from the scaffold, parboiled, stuck on a pole and exhibited on the London Bridge. His daughter, Margaret Roper, bribed the bridge-keeper to knock it down. She smuggled the head home and preserved it in spices. When she died, the head was buried with her. In the nineteenth century the tomb was opened and More’s head was put on public view in St. Dunstan’s Church, in Canterbury.
Queen Anne Boleyn was beheaded in 1536 on the orders of her husband, King Henry VIII. Her heart was stolen and hidden in a church. Three centuries later it was re-discovered and placed under the church organ.
Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector of England, died in 1658 and was embalmed and buried in Westminster Abbey. After the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, his body was dug up and taken to Tyburn where it was gibbeted until sundown. The Public Executioner lowered the body, cut off the head and impaled it on a 25 foot pole on the roof of Westminster Hall. It remained there until 1685 when it was dislodged during a gale. A soldier found the head and hid it in his chimney. On his deathbed, he bequeathed it to his daughter. In 1710, the head appeared in a freak show as ‘The Monster’s Head.’ A doctor bought the head for a significant sum and donated it to Sydney Sussex College in 1960 where it was buried in a secret spot on the college grounds. Read the rest of this entry »
by Justin Nobel
T-shirts, hats, pins and belts were the norm but some vendors in Harlem, in New York City, sold Michael Jackson umbrellas. Fans couldnt get enough. (Photo by Justin Nobel)
Jumillah Galvez sold 72 Michael T-shirts in 30 minutes earlier this week but now all anyone seems to care about is when the next batch of her Michael Jackson umbrellas will arrive.
“People been out here since 1 p.m. saying, ‘Did they come yet? Did they come yet?” said Galvez, last Friday evening.
Her stand is one of dozens in an impromptu bazaar of Michael Jackson goods that stretches several blocks along 125th Street, in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City.
“When a celebrity dies there is a massive outpouring of feeling and memorialization and along with that comes this sort of spontaneous outpouring of folks who feel something but also think they can make a buck,” said Robert Neuwirth, a journalist working on a book about informal marketplaces. Read the rest of this entry »
