Digital Dying

Archive for August, 2009

Want a necklace made of fingertips?

by Justin Nobel

A necklace with a cross made out of human metacarpal bones goes for $80 on "The Churchyard", an online jewelry shop run by Columbine Phoenix. (Photo courtesy of Columbine Phoenix)

A necklace with a cross made out of human metacarpal bones adorned with a garnet that symbolizes the Blood of Christ goes for $115 on "The Churchyard", an online jewelry shop run by Columbine Phoenix that sells necklaces and earrings made from human bones and teeth. (Photo courtesy of Columbine Phoenix)

A necklace of phalanges costs $165 and a cross of metacarpal goes for $80 on Columbine Phoenix’s website. The retail jeweler sells agate chalices, crystal wands and ceremonial blades but her favorite merchandises are the necklaces and earrings made of human bone that she crafts herself. Chain necklaces, strung with a single human molar, are also available.

“This is something solid that you can hold in your hand or wear in your ear,” said Phoenix. “It makes death a little less scary.”

The bones come from an education supply store, the same place she gets her rat and bat skulls. The supply store obtains the human bones from retired science classroom skeletons.

“You can tell that they were from a good family,” said Phoenix, referring to the skeletons. “They got their milk and they’re strong.”

Bones don’t come cheaply, though. A hand goes for about $250, she said, and a whole skeleton costs more like $5,000. Skulls alone cost about $1,000 and are purchased in large numbers by art schools. “Supposedly, you can’t draw a human face until you can draw a skull,” said Phoenix. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by justin on August 30th, 2009

Categrories: Death in Art

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Death Panels refuted, but not in Serbia, Japan or the Arctic

by Justin Nobel

"The Ballad of Narayama", a 1983 Japanese film about ubasute refers to a custom in which an elderly relative is carried to a remote place and left to die of dehydration and exposure. The practice, couched in legend, is reminiscent of the infamous "death panels" critics claim President Obama wants to institute into his healthcare reform bill.

"The Ballad of Narayama", a 1983 Japanese film by director Shohei Imamura, refers to a custom called ubasute, in which an elderly relative is carried to a remote place and left to die of dehydration and exposure. The practice, couched in legend, is reminiscent of the infamous "death panels" that critics exaggeratedly claim President Obama wants to institute into his healthcare reform bill.

The elderly are a burden and should bow out, saving society money.

Critics of President Obama’s healthcare reform claim this is what was meant by a section of a proposed bill entitled “Advance Care Planning Consultation.” Advance care planning practitioners were called “death panels” by critics and a media volcano erupted.

Proponents of the bill argue that the disputed passage was actually intended to inform elders about end-of-life issues, such as access to a good hospice and how to create a living will.

At issue is the idea of senicide, or the abandonment to death of the elderly. The concept may seem outrageous to citizens of this country, but in some spots on the planet it’s a time-honored tradition, or at least a time-honored legend.

In the Dinaric Mountains of Serbia, lapot refers to the legendary practice of killing one’s parents or other elderly family members once they have become a financial burden. “In the area of Homolje, Zajecar, and Negotin Krajina, the ritual existed and was practiced on a large scale until the end of the nineteenth century, and even in the early twentieth century,” reads a passage from Branimir Anzulovic’s history of the region, “Heavenly Serbia: From Myth to Genocide”.

Elderly were killed with sticks and sometimes with rocks or an axe. Usually, the victim’s children committed the act. In a grisly passage from Heavenly Serbia, Anzulovic quotes an earlier lapot text: “In Krepoljin and some other places in eastern Serbia, members of the household used to prepare cornmush, put it on the old man’s or woman’s head, and strike it with an axe until the person died. They did it this way to make it appear that the mush was the killer, not themselves.” Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by justin on August 21st, 2009

Categrories: Death in Politics

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Building Cities for the dead off the Florida Coast

by Justin Nobel

Neptune Memorial Reef, off the coast of Florida is an underwater cemetery city that will eventually be able to accomodate more than 100,000 people. The artificial reef attracts tropical fish and scuba divers and s sessigned to withstand a category 4 hurricane.

Neptune Memorial Reef, off the coast of Florida, is an underwater city that will eventually be able to accommodate the cremated remains of more than 100,000 people. The artificial reef attracts tropical fish and scuba divers and is designed to withstand a Category 4 hurricane. (Photo courtesy of Neptune Memorial Reef)

Off the coast of Key Biscayne, Florida, a city of the dead is rising. Neptune Memorial Reef is an array of concrete structures infused with cremated remains, designed to form an elaborate underwater cemetery that when complete will cover 16 acres and be able to accommodate more than 125,000 dead. Reef occupants can choose placement in columns, arches, lion statues or mounds shaped like creatures of the sea.

“The most popular are the marine placements,” said Stephen Ziadie, the reef’s Chief Operating Officer. “Everyone wants to be a shellfish or a starfish or a brain coral.”

The Neptune Memorial Reef is a project of the Neptune Society, a U.S. company focused on cremation. Neptune is one of a handful of companies crafting innovative underwater burial sites in warm Florida waters. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by justin on August 17th, 2009

Categrories: Funeral Industry

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Zombies stalk the streets, from Alabama to Alaska

by Justin Nobel

Zombie walks are a relatively new phenomenon. Their increase is linked to the recent surge in the popularity of zombie films and may be a result of modern society's separation from the death process, says Erik Zempel, of the Zombie Reporting Center. (Photo courtesy of Erik Zempel)

Zombie walks are a relatively new phenomenon. Their increase is linked to the recent surge in the popularity of zombie films and may be a result of modern society

A ragtag mob with ashen, blood smeared faces and darkened eyes roamed downtown San Diego two weeks ago, flailing their arms, searching for brains. They were zombies, on a zombie walk to promote Woody Harrelson’s much anticipated film, Zombieland, due out in October.

The first such walk was about ten years ago, according to Erik Zempel, co-founder of the Zombie Reporting Center, one of several websites that tracks zombie films. Three years ago, nearly 900 zombies stalked the Monroeville Mall, outside Pittsburgh, setting a Guinness World Record. So far this year, zombie walks have occurred in dozens of states, including Georgia, Arizona, Illinois, Idaho, Alabama and Alaska.

“I think if we as a society were more involved with the death process and the funeral process these sorts of themes might never come up,” said Zempel.

Americans have been physically distancing themselves from death for the past century, he argues. The more we distance ourselves, the more popular zombie movies seem to become.

“It seems to me there is a fear of dead bodies and perhaps 100 years ago that wasn’t so,” said Kempel.

The economic recession may also be partially responsible for the recent pulse in zombie walks and films. This year’s selection includes: “Mud Zombie”, a Brazilian film in which zombies emerge from the mangroves and overrun a tiny fishing village. “Dead Air” reveals what happens at a radio station the night zombies created by a chemical terrorist attack storm the city. “Gallowwalker” is a zombie western, shot by Wesley Snipes and “Samurai Zombie” is a Japanese film about old samurais that return from the dead to stalk a family on a hiking trip in remote mountains.

“Pathogen” is a zombie flick written by a 10 year-old and “Zombie Girl” is the documentary about the making of it. “Le Horde” depicts an epic battle between corrupt cops and gangsters the night of a zombie outbreak and “Dead Snow” is a highly buzzed about Norwegian film that tells the story of eight friends at a remote cabin who discover Nazi zombies frozen in the snow.

The first Zombie films were in the 1930s, and focused more on mind control than hordes of blood thirsty half-dead. The most well-known film from this era was “White Zombie”, released in 1932, in which a man resorts to voodoo to transform a beautiful woman into a zombie so he can scare off her lover and woo her himself. The story takes place in Haiti, and draws heavily on Haitian vodou, which has roots in West African beliefs and practices.

It wasn’t until the 1968 film, “Night of the Living Dead,” directed by George Romero, that the zombies in movies developed a mad craving for human flesh. Romero actually didn’t call his nightmarish figures zombies, but that was the name that stuck, and the genre under which his film and the many it inspired came to be known.

Zombie films remained popular through the 1980s and lost ground in the 1990s. They have now returned with a vengeance.

With the increased popularity comes a more diverse fan base, said Zempel. The idea that zombie fans are all macabre goths obsessed with death is inaccurate, said Zempel.

“They really cut across a wide cross-section of the U.S. population,” he said.

Posted by admin on August 3rd, 2009

Categrories: Cemetery Stories

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