Death and Nat Geo
"Death, like the sun, should never be looked at directly.
Ritual, like a filter, is our shield, our way of looking at death."
-some collegiate dude on Nat Geo's "Taboo"
Just got done watching the episode on death.
Guess this is season 6 episode 6 - "Beyond the Grave."
The tagline of the show is "Taboo will test your boundaries and push beyond your comfort zone. Understand seemingly bizarre and shocking practices from around the world."
Yeah... I was mildly uncomfortable watching. (and eating, I might add) So... may not want to watch it. But I have issues with medical procedures and bodies, one reason why I never became a funeral director or mortician. It's not the bodies themselves, or even touching them, I have problems with, it's embalming and watching the processes for "Bodyworks" that makes me nauseous.
The bit here is about Nepalese Hindus and their public cremation ceremonies. I got kinda mad that they played dramatic music and got all spooky about how it's ... "taboo"... in Western society.
NO IT AIN'T! VIKINGS DID IT!!! And lots of pagan cultures. Sheesh.
Anyway, I had no idea that American (or as they ominously said) some parts of the United States embrace open casket funerals. Apparently it's different in Europe. Saying goodbye this way is unique to "United Statesians." (Really, we have to come up with a better term than "American" it's insulting to Mexicans and Canadians... we're such glory hogs... but I don't even KNOW another word for it.)
I understand that some cultures and religions think embalming is desecration of the body and natural order, but didn't know it was unique.
The controversy over "Bodyworks" surprised me. Profiting over death hardly seems as bad as profiting from, say, war or tortuous medical experiments. While it ratchets up the 'oogy' meter for me (do NOT like what's under the skin, thankyouverymuch) I don't think it's desecration - you don't see these same people crying about getting mummies and indigenous cultural remains out of museums with such ferocity. The idea is pretty keen, actually - it does kinda immortalize you a la the pharaohs, and is more useful than burying you in a box to rot.
The "Coffin Academy" was really a cool idea. (I had no idea that South Korea had the highest suicide rate of any industrialized nation - something like 33 ppl a day...) You go through a 4 hour seminar that involves writing your own eulogy, reading it, and then being put in a wooden box in a death shroud for 10 minutes. Gives you time to contemplate what you miss, who misses you, and what matters.
Apparently corporations pay to have their workers sent there, it makes them more happy and productive.
You can see more at the National Geographic website. I've watched a lot of these episodes (the "Strange Love" one - on "iDollitors" was cool and weird. I love how the guy in Michigan basically made his doll wife goth.)
Me? I want to be cremated and shot into space. It's a big middle finger to the "to dust we shall return." Um, no. You can't have ME you stupid earth!!! I will forever be space junk!!!
...I dunno, I heard it from some comedian somewhere. It seemed like a fun way to go.
My mother once told me she wanted a Viking funeral boat. I'm holding her to it. STRAIGHT INTO LAKE MONONA... or Mendota... whichever will get me in the most trouble.
She's not going in one of those creepy filing cabinet memorial drawers, which seems to be here latest wish. (this was brought up after that crazy dude crashed his plane into the IRS building, and I said "well, that's one way to leave a lasting impression in death." Please note, I do not approve killing other people on your way out, and he couldn't have been doing that bad, he had a private plane for crying out loud!)
Oh, and I want a bench or some fun architectural memorial in the graveyard. Something useful and fun in the public space. I hate flat memorial gardens. No fun. People used to have picnics and spend Sunday afternoons in the graveyards for heaven's sake! It was like the park!
Also - the icon I chose? Sailor Saturn? Sailor scout of DEATH - well... annihilation/destruction/rebirth. Such a nice girl too... had to kill herself or end the universe. Or something. Very Kali-like figure.
I'm weird. I know that.
kthxbye!
Ritual, like a filter, is our shield, our way of looking at death."
-some collegiate dude on Nat Geo's "Taboo"
Just got done watching the episode on death.
Guess this is season 6 episode 6 - "Beyond the Grave."
The tagline of the show is "Taboo will test your boundaries and push beyond your comfort zone. Understand seemingly bizarre and shocking practices from around the world."
Yeah... I was mildly uncomfortable watching. (and eating, I might add) So... may not want to watch it. But I have issues with medical procedures and bodies, one reason why I never became a funeral director or mortician. It's not the bodies themselves, or even touching them, I have problems with, it's embalming and watching the processes for "Bodyworks" that makes me nauseous.
The bit here is about Nepalese Hindus and their public cremation ceremonies. I got kinda mad that they played dramatic music and got all spooky about how it's ... "taboo"... in Western society.
NO IT AIN'T! VIKINGS DID IT!!! And lots of pagan cultures. Sheesh.
Anyway, I had no idea that American (or as they ominously said) some parts of the United States embrace open casket funerals. Apparently it's different in Europe. Saying goodbye this way is unique to "United Statesians." (Really, we have to come up with a better term than "American" it's insulting to Mexicans and Canadians... we're such glory hogs... but I don't even KNOW another word for it.)
I understand that some cultures and religions think embalming is desecration of the body and natural order, but didn't know it was unique.
The controversy over "Bodyworks" surprised me. Profiting over death hardly seems as bad as profiting from, say, war or tortuous medical experiments. While it ratchets up the 'oogy' meter for me (do NOT like what's under the skin, thankyouverymuch) I don't think it's desecration - you don't see these same people crying about getting mummies and indigenous cultural remains out of museums with such ferocity. The idea is pretty keen, actually - it does kinda immortalize you a la the pharaohs, and is more useful than burying you in a box to rot.
The "Coffin Academy" was really a cool idea. (I had no idea that South Korea had the highest suicide rate of any industrialized nation - something like 33 ppl a day...) You go through a 4 hour seminar that involves writing your own eulogy, reading it, and then being put in a wooden box in a death shroud for 10 minutes. Gives you time to contemplate what you miss, who misses you, and what matters.
Apparently corporations pay to have their workers sent there, it makes them more happy and productive.
You can see more at the National Geographic website. I've watched a lot of these episodes (the "Strange Love" one - on "iDollitors" was cool and weird. I love how the guy in Michigan basically made his doll wife goth.)
Me? I want to be cremated and shot into space. It's a big middle finger to the "to dust we shall return." Um, no. You can't have ME you stupid earth!!! I will forever be space junk!!!
...I dunno, I heard it from some comedian somewhere. It seemed like a fun way to go.
My mother once told me she wanted a Viking funeral boat. I'm holding her to it. STRAIGHT INTO LAKE MONONA... or Mendota... whichever will get me in the most trouble.
She's not going in one of those creepy filing cabinet memorial drawers, which seems to be here latest wish. (this was brought up after that crazy dude crashed his plane into the IRS building, and I said "well, that's one way to leave a lasting impression in death." Please note, I do not approve killing other people on your way out, and he couldn't have been doing that bad, he had a private plane for crying out loud!)
Oh, and I want a bench or some fun architectural memorial in the graveyard. Something useful and fun in the public space. I hate flat memorial gardens. No fun. People used to have picnics and spend Sunday afternoons in the graveyards for heaven's sake! It was like the park!
Also - the icon I chose? Sailor Saturn? Sailor scout of DEATH - well... annihilation/destruction/rebirth. Such a nice girl too... had to kill herself or end the universe. Or something. Very Kali-like figure.
I'm weird. I know that.
kthxbye!