Some More Creative Wakes and Funeral Selfies

I haven't updated here in a while, but today I read about New Orleans socialite Mickey Easterling who left specific instructions to be propped up with a cigarette and champagne flute at her wake.

From that link I found that a couple months ago a boxer named Christopher Rivera Amaro was posed in his boxing garb so that visitors could take pictures with him:

In addition to these photography-friendly funerals, there is also a "trend" of funeral selfies that has been making a lot of people uncomfortable lately (examples shown on this Tumblr dedicated to selfies taken at funerals), a phenomenon parodied in The Hangover III. 

For those who don't already know, though, this isn't necessarily a modern phenomenon.  When photography was less ubiquitous and more expensive, post-mortem photography--with both corpse and living relatives posed in life-reminiscent situations--might be the only opportunity a less-affluent family would have to get a picture of a recently-deceased loved one.

In the case of my own family, I found photographs of dead people dating from the 1970s and 1980s, so it's not like it ever really went away.

So taking pictures posing with the deceased or at their funerals really isn't as weird as people would have it, it's just done for the exact opposite reason:  While early on people would take pictures of their dead relatives because there were few opportunities to get pictures of them to begin with, people take pictures of their dead relatives now because photography is so ubiquitous that there are few contexts in which people aren't willing to take pictures.

DIY Funerals Get A Boost

Today I was checking out Facebook and saw that there is a growing movement for DIY at-home funerals.  Check it out:

Become a Tree

I literally haven't posted here in years... wow!  Oddly enough, it's not because I forgot of its existence, but I just haven't had the time to be dilligent about finiding new and interesting ways to die... but here's one from BigThink:

This Awesome Urn will Turn You Into a Tree After You Die

The urn is made of biodegradeable materials, such as coconut shell, and is filled with peat and soil.  There's a tree seed in it, and when the urn is buried, it grows into a tree.  Also it looks kind of like a coffee cup:

Mushroom Burial Suit

Jae Rhim Lee explains her suit seeded with mushrooms that eat the toxic byproducts of burial. It's an art piece, but it's still pretty cool!

From TED.com.

Cool Star Wars headstone...

Click to see, found on Reddit.

Liquify your dead body.

Liquify your dead body... for the Earth.

I'm in class so I don't have much to say about it right now, just... wow.

Clown Funeral

This is old news, very old news, but I found it while I was looking at something else and it's new news to me, so you get it anyway:

This is the funeral of Norman Thompson, a.k.a. "Boppo," who was a member of a clown troupe which visited children in hospital burn units.  He was honored with a clown funeral.

From Quigley's Cabinet.

Funeral Song

Sorry for how long I've been gone, I work at a summer camp and I don't have reliable Internet access.

I did, however, find an awesome song about funerals:

Stride gum... lasts a ridiculously long time.

Really?

Stride "Urn" TV Commercial from Tom Christmann on Vimeo.

The Euthanasia Coaster

Found this via The Daily What, a concept design by PhD candidate Julijonas Urbonas.  It's a roller coaster which is designed to kill the person riding it in a comfortable and euphoric manner.  A "Euthanasia Coaster."

Patrick Stewart on Assisted Suicide

I found this personally topical because I'd just seen the movie "You Don't Know Jack" which told the story of Dr. Jack Kevorkian, also known as "Dr. Death" who was the main player in an involved fight for the acceptance of physician assisted suicide here in the States.

Now Sir Patrick Stewart of Star Trek: The Next Generation fame has come forward in support of physician assisted suicide through the organization Dignity in Dying, a British-based group.

As the blogger at Stuff Dead People Like, I strongly believe that people deserve choices regarding their own deaths, even if others disagree.  If you're interested in some non-British groups for the same purpose, Compassion & Choices is based in Denver, CO and you can also check out the World Federation of Right to Die Societies.

Compton funeral home drive-thru

There's this funeral home that was just highlighted in which rather than go inside the funeral home you drive or walk alongside it and the remains are showcased behind a window.  It's a drive-thru wake, and after the initial "Seriously?!" wore off all I can say is, well, interesting!


From the Los Angeles Times.

QR Code Headstones in Japan

Via JapanTrends.

In the future this is the sort of thing that will make archaeologists go "WTF?"

My Third Cousin's Parents

This is a little late, but after I was showing Stuff Dead People Like to my aunt and my third cousin, the latter pulled up a picture and said "meet my parents!"  I asked for permission to post it here, so here we go:

These are the cremains of his parents who apparently were dressed up for a costume party.

Hot Rod Caskets!

Didn't I just say like four posts ago I never get to talk about caskets?  And here, second post in one day having to do with caskets.

Not the first car related casket I've shown here, but it is pretty sweet:

Apparently if you want to buy it long before you actually have to use it, it can be converted into an ice chest by adding a different liner.  Gives a new meaning to the expression "iced."

Via Neatorama.

Lee Harvey Oswald's Casket Sold

For $87,469.  Apparently he was buried in this, and then when his body was exhumed his family had his casket swapped out for a different one, and so the funeral home sold it.  Check it out:

Lee Harvey Oswald's Casket

Via Art Daily.

Computer Geek Gravestone

This is the head stone of Hu Chuang, who died at 26 and whose headstone is a badass piece of computer geekery:

[Via: Neatorama]

The Soapman!

[Im Cr: David Hunt/Smithsonian]

I know it's old news, but I've never actually seen the picture before... this is the Soap Man, whose body was found after being entirely saponified, or literally turned into soap.

But do they make it in argyle?

I know, I know, this is old.  But it's new to me!  And I so very rarely get to talk about caskets.

This is a coffin. A wool coffin.  This is one of many ways people are making burial of the dead a little more eco-friendly, and I have to admit, if you were to simply tell me that one could make coffins out of wool, I'd have expected something that looked like one of my great aunt's knitted scarves and not this elegant white casket.

Warming Up the Cold Touch of Death

Does it turn blue if you take the white pills?

First thing I thought about when I saw Ann Marinenko's ghost urns was the Android mascot.  No lie.  I think the description on the website I found these on is... strange.  They refer to the urns as "timeless like a pall," but I bet if you gave one of these to anyone who has attended their fair share of funerals they would disagree.

I will give them that they're whimsical and cute, if a bit unsettling.  Not a bad choice if they get off the ground.