Last posts on death

What I'm Reading Lately ... Death, Death and Certainty

2008-10-27T16:21:00+01:00

My irregular annotated link dump:

>> Never Say Die: Why We Can't Imagine Death by Jesse Bering in the 22 Oct. 2008 SciAm:

The crux: "So why is it so hard to conceptualize inexistence anyway? Part of my own account, which I call the 'simulation constraint hypothesis,' is that in attempting to imagine what it's like to be dead we appeal to our own background of conscious experiences -- because that's how we approach most thought experiments. Death isn't 'like' anything we've ever experienced, however. Because we have never consciously been without consciousness, even our best simulations of true nothingness just aren't good enough."

Fun for the Whole Family: "In a 2004 study reported in Developmental Psychology, Florida Atlantic University psychologist David F. Bjorklund and I presented 200 three- to 12-year-olds with a puppet show. Every child saw the story of Baby Mouse, who was out strolling innocently in the woods. 'Just then,' we told them, 'he notices something very strange. The bushes are moving! An alligator jumps out of the bushes and gobbles him all up. Baby Mouse is not alive anymore.'"

What We Can't UnLearn: "Back when you were still in diapers, you learned that people didn't cease to exist simply because you couldn't see them. Developmental psychologists even have a fancy term for this basic concept: 'person permanence.' Such an off-line social awareness leads us to tacitly assume that the people we know are somewhere doing something. ... We can't simply switch off our person-permanence thinking just because someone has died. This inability is especially the case, of course, for those whom we were closest to and whom we frequently imagined to be actively engaging in various activities when out of sight."

>> For a Fee, a Thai Temple Offers a Head Start on Rebirth by Seth Mydans in the NYT, 26 Sept. 2008. (Reminds me of a vividly described scene in the movie My Dinner with Andre.) What interests me about the Thai story is the explicit connection between anxiety due to the state of the economy (i.e., decline in prosperity) and the need for this kind of burial and resurrection ritual:

"Nine big pink coffins dominate the grand hall of the temple, and every day hundreds of people take their turns climbing in for a [minute and a half] as monks chant a dirge. Then, at a command, the visitors clamber out again cleansed -- they believe -- of the past. ... A cardboard sign warns visitors not to stand behind the coffins, where bad karma sucked from the 'dying' devotees may still be hovering ...

"It is a renewal for our times, as recent economic hardship brings uncertainty and people try seeking a bailout on life. In growing numbers, they come here from around Thailand to join what has become an assembly line of resurrection.

"'When the economy is down, we latch our hopes onto some supernatural power,' said Ekachai Uekrongtham, the writer-director whose movie The Coffin is in Thai cinemas now with a plot revolving around such funerals for the living."

>> Psychology Voting: 'My Candidate, Myself,' by Robert Burton in Salon, 22 Sept. 2008 (I previously cited Burton's work on certainty when it appeared in a 9 Oct. SciAm piece): The lead-off quote is this: "Let's make sure that there is certainty during uncertain times" -- George W. Bush, 2008.

Burton laments humans' inability to change our minds, to view our own opinions with skepticism, to refuse to be swayed by logical appeal.

He cites a 1999 paper reporting on a study of Cornell undergraduates, which found that the most incompetent people overestimate their abilities to the greatest degree. In other words, "People who lack the knowledge or wisdom to perform well are often unaware of this fact. That is, the same incompetence that leads them to make wrong choices also deprives them of the savvy necessary to recognize competence, be it their own or anyone else's." And, conversely, "smart people tend to believe that everyone else 'gets it.'" They overestimate other people's abilities.

Further: "Closely allied with this unshakable self-confidence in one's decisions is a second separate aspect of meta-cognition, the feeling of being right. ... [F]eelings of conviction, certainty and other similar states of 'knowing what we know' may feel like logical conclusions, but are in fact involuntary mental sensations that function independently of reason. ... The evidence is substantial that these feelings do not correlate with the accuracy or quality of the thought." And, "Like other powerful mental states such as love, anger and fear, they are extraordinarily difficult to dislodge through rational arguments."

He cites another study in which "staunch party members from both sides" are asked to "evaluate negative (defamatory) information about their 2004 presidential choice:

"Areas of the brain (prefrontal cortex) normally engaged during reasoning failed to show increased activation. Instead, the limbic system -- the center for emotional processing -- lit up dramatically. ...'[B]oth Republicans and Democrats 'reached totally biased conclusions by ignoring information that could not rationally be discounted.'"

Burton suggests that we would know more about our political candidates if we could give them thought experiments that would demonstrate how they think. He'd also like to focus on "each candidate's intellectual grasp of scientific method, from choosing and evaluating evidence to seeing how they would respond to a well-constructed contrary line of reasoning." And what do they do when they are presented with evidence that their answers are wrong? Can the candidates recognise their intellectual limitations? And can we?

Not What We Deserve

2008-10-02T00:14:00+02:00

House: People get what they get. It's got nothing to do with what they deserve. (House MD, ep. 5x01, Death Changes Everything)

Reminds me of a (fictional?) poem quoted in a crime novel I read on my vacation:

"People don't die because they're bad.

They die because they're available." (The Falls, Ian Rankin)

Death of a Mother

2008-09-01T02:25:00+02:00

Who wouldn’t get stressed because of a mother’s death? Even tough woman Angelina Jolie lost weight last year because her mother died. How much more do we expect from Ely Buendia who had heart surgery last year and lost his mother two days before the concert?

Stress can either be positive or negative. I think the recent cut-concert last Saturday with thousands of fans who attended was really overwhelming. It was a positive stress to Ely’s heart. But stress is a stress.

Enough. Wala akong balak mag-layout ng inference or disease process dito. XD

Music:

Eraserheads - Pare Ko

His back to the fire

2008-08-24T12:25:00+02:00

"My father took a camera everywhere. He took photos of everything. He had separate photo albums for sad photos. He said these were just as important. The pictures in these albums were of family funerals, of my mother returning from being fired at work, of my brother after he broke his wrist trying to jump over a tennis net. There were pictures of each of us having just vomited, or holding a failing test mark, or the moment after we found the cockatoo or the team we were supporting had lost. There was a picture of me, aged nine, looking up at the camera. In the middle of the night, I had knocked on my parents’ bedroom door. I was holding my blanket and in tears because I didn’t want to die. My father held the camera steady and pressed the button."

I started my photography career this way (still have the photos to prove it) but fast learned that others found my observational interest in their sadness and pain to be evidence of a cruel, cold, harsh, mechanical, sick, aloof, unsisterly, and decidedly misaligned heart and soul. The zoom lens circumvents some of the judgment but not entirely.

Anyway, read Crispin Best's essay. ... "My father seldom insulted people and only ever by using the names of edible fish: flathead, pilchard, pollock or scrod."

Leroy Died (1955-2008)

2008-08-18T23:20:00+02:00

As I've mentioned, I've read the NPR blog of journalist and Nightline producer Leroy Sievers' battle with cancer for a couple of years now. (I wouldn't call it a battle but he did.) I was away all week and when I returned home on Sunday afternoon, I found that Leroy had died rather suddenly on Friday night at his Maryland home, at age 53, just three days after he and his wife decided to contact hospice. It was a shock. I knew he was dying but I hadn't expected it this soon. His last post, the day before, was about a stuffed Bernese Mountain dog, sitting on the bed with him.

More at ABC News. And NPR. And NYT. There's a memorial fund set up.

(Photo of Leroy with his wife Laurie Singer.)

Human Brutality - Part of One Day

2008-08-01T02:30:00+02:00

I realise lots of good things happened today, all over the world. But checking CNN headline news this evening, here's what I found:

Bus passenger beheaded seat mate, witness says, in Manitoba, Canada. More, including identity of killer and victim, but still no motive. (2 Aug update: It gets worse.)

Preacher killed wife, stuffed body in freezer, police say, near Mobile, Alabama. He did this in Nov. 2004, when his wife caught him abusing his daughter, and he hid his wife's body with the help of the teenaged daughter he had been abusing. He's apparently been preaching ever since. (His resemblance to E.T. is remarkable ...)

Killer 'photographed mutilated girlfriend', in Goiania, Brazil. He dismembered her, photographed her with his cell phone, and stuffed her torso into a suitcase. The girlfriend was going to "tell his parents he was a drug dealer addicted to cocaine." More.

Sexual assault in military 'jaw-dropping,' lawmaker says. Forty-one percent of women at a veterans hospital reported being sexually assaulted while in the military and twenty-nine percent report being raped during their military service.

As the Wicked Witch says, "What a world, what a world ..." -- but the witch was bemoaning the loss of her wickedness to a good little girl who was just trying to save her scarecrow friend ...

What I'm Reading Lately: Death, Dog Poisoning, Novelty, Flawed Heroes, Psych Experiments, Limiting Generalisations

2008-07-24T12:15:00+02:00

A mish-mash of my recent online reading, pondering, etc.

>> Alpine murder mystery: Are sheepdogs being poisoned to save the grey wolf? (Independent, 18 July 2008):

So far this year, 17 sheepdogs (including Great Pyrenees) have been poisoned -- with slug poison placed inside pork meatballs -- in the high Maurienne mountains, just inside the French border with Italy. The killings seem to stem from an ongoing dispute between sheep-lovers (and shepherds) and wolf-lovers. "'The pork meat balls were left, some time during the night, most likely just before dawn, in a place where the dogs would be sure to find them. This is the work of a maniac – a madman. What if the meat had been found by a small child? There are tourists everywhere at this time of year, including many British tourists.'"

"The dogs have often died in great agony.... [The poison] causes instant and catastrophic diarrhoea and lung failure in small mammals like dogs. 'They finish up dying completely dehydrated but, before that, they drown in their own bronchial fluids.'"

There are about 100 wolves in France. There is a sheep-protection plan in place in the area, and there have been no wolf attacks on sheep in the Maurienne area for more than two years.

>> If you haven't read it yet, I recommend "Cancer & Creativity: One Chef’s True Story" (Food & Wine, July 2008):

"While undergoing treatment for tongue cancer, Grant Achatz temporarily lost his ability to taste. Paradoxically, it taught him brilliant new ways to create flavor."

>> Impossible Experiments (Psychology Today, 1 July 2008) is a small collection of research psychologists would like to do "if neither ethics nor practical reality stood in your way." What interests me is that almost all the comments (so far) are about one hypothesis, that how parents raise their kids doesn't influence them significantly. The experiment I would jump on is Tamler Sommers' "Another Man's Shoes." (The YouTube video at the end makes clear that the whole thing is a joke ... or is it?) Other never-done experiments.

>> "Our Infantile Search for Heroic Leaders" by Johann Hari (26 June 2008, Independent). Hari's thesis is two-fold: That there are no perfectly good leaders and that we can't expect leaders to solve our problems because "every civilising advance in history ... was won because ordinary people banded together and agitated for it." Not much new there, but what interested me about this article was Hari's critique of Mandela, Gandhi, and Churchill as flawed leaders. I never knew that Churchill, for instance, was "strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes." His portrayal of Gandhi as a murderer (of his wife) seems overdone, not because I don't believe it's possible but because even as Hari presents it, it sounds more like a matter of adhering to principles in one case (his wife's illness) and not in another (his own illness), a rather ordinary though insidious trait.

>> Reframing Questions by Dave Pollard at How To Save the World (16 July 2008) seeks to promote critical thinking, to help us think beyond our own "false myths and limiting generalizations." He gives some examples of some limiting myths and generalisations he encounters everyday in business, then reframes the questions, and then asks his readers: "What are the false myths and limiting generalizations that you are struggling with, and how might you use appropriate questions to reframe them, disempower them, put them to rest?" Some day I may give some energy to it and respond to that challenge here.

>> "Why We Like New Stuff" (Mental Floss, 16 July 2008). Basically, "our brains are actually hard-wired to prefer novelty and adventure. ... In fact, research on the ventral striatum (the part of the brain associated with rewarding behavior) seems to indicate that sating our sense of adventure provides us the same sort of satisfaction we get from sex and food." Dopamine figures, too. Full study (7 pages, PDF).

>> "Italian Outrage Over Roma Drowning Photos" (21 July 2008, CNN) is confusing to me. "Italian newspapers, an archbishop and civil liberties campaigners expressed shock and revulsion on Monday after photographs were published of sunbathers apparently enjoying a day at the beach just meters from where the bodies of two drowned Roma girls were laid out on the sand."

I think I might be creeped out if dead people were lying on the beach -- I'm creeped out when a dead seal or horseshoe crab is lying on the beach -- but the sunbathers' critics aren't shocked that they're not repulsed enough, presumably; they're shocked that the sunbathers are indifferent to the bodies. Shocked that they can act as if they aren't there, that they can do what they would ordinarily do without creating a sacred space for the bodies, without making their deaths the focus. That doesn't seem so bad to me. In any important way, the girls are not there, so why regard the dead bodies as something sacred, something whose presence means we should act differently than we do ordinarily? I guess it's because death is seen as such a powerful force.

The Archbishop of Naples, Cardinal Crecenzio Seppe, said in his blog that "'To turn the other way or to mind your own business can sometimes be more devastating than the events that occur.'" I'd agree if the girls were injured or needed lifesaving efforts; then it would be cruel to be indifferent. But I don't see how the sunbathers' can really mind the dead girls' business now, or why they should.

I've been in the presence of someone in the moments of her death, and in the presence of her body, as it lay in her house, for a couple of hours after that. The moment of dying, yes, that felt like something happened, something a little unusual and yet not, like breathing in and out. But for the hours afterwards? My experience was that life went on in its ordinary way. If I hadn't felt that all along that morning, I would have when the mortuary folks came with their plastic garbage-like bag and heaved her body into it. It was about as sacred-seeming as bodies under beach towels on a sunny day.

(In a twisted way, it kinda reminds me of this ...)

Taking A Life

2008-07-21T17:36:17+02:00

"When it became clear he wasn't going to move out of the way, I closed my eyes, covered my face and held my breath.

"By the time we were stationary, four of my eight cars were in the platform and I was on autopilot. I told the passengers there would be a delay in opening the doors due to an 'incident', and was calling the line controller for assistance when I heard a tap on my cab door. A smart man inquired, 'Do you know there's a person under your train?' I looked at the blood on the windscreen momentarily before assuring him that, yes, I was aware.

"He paused for a heartbeat, looked at his watch and said, 'So, how long before we get on the move again?'"

(from "Last Year I Killed a Man," by Vaughan Thomas, in the Guardian, 19 July 2008, via Scott)

More Funeral Stuff

2008-07-21T02:45:00+02:00

A short McSweeney's list: Phrases I'd Rather Not Be Used At My Funeral by Harry Burt, with my anxious additions:

"autoerotic asphyxiation" [likewise: "left 10-inch clawmarks"]

"found by cadaver dogs" ["according to the forensic entomologist"]

"hopped up on goofballs" ["ate her weight in Oreos"]

"minutes from rescue" ["last-second airline flight change"]

"prehensile tail" ["cascading sheets of mucus"]

["salvaged what we could," "leaned over the rim a smidge too far," "must have been in unimaginable pain," "what's that on his forehead? 'syawliarT'?"]

Favourite Funeral Music

2008-07-15T18:30:00+02:00

Looking for music for your memorial service? Check out these ideas, which include the Monty Python song, 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life'; Brahms's Ein Deutsches Requiem (Kempe or Klemperer versions, 79 minutes long); Bach's 'Sleepers Awake;' Prince's 'Let's Go Crazy;' Gillian Welch's 'I Dream A Highway;' Crash Test Dummies' 'At My Funeral;' requiems of Verdi, Faure, and Mozart; AC/DC's 'Highway to Hell' ...

(My list includes, at the moment, Louis Armstrong's 'What A Wonderful World,' Kate Smith's 'I'll Be Seeing You,' and either Ella's or Bobby Short's 'They Can’t Take That Away from Me')

Solutions: Religion (Notes from Status Anxiety)

2008-07-14T12:00:00+02:00

Notes from Alain de Botton's Status Anxiety (2004). This is the tenth post on this topic; the first is here.

PART II: Solutions

CHAPTER 4 - RELIGION

Death

Tolstoy's novella The Death of Ivan llyich (1886) is a Christian memento mori. Ivan Ilyich is all about status. When he realises he's going to die, he recognises he's wasted his time on Earth by leading an outwardly respectable but inwardly barren life. He always wanted to appear important and to impress people whom, he sees now, don't care for him at all. Those around him love his status, not his true vulnerable self.

The prospect of death may cause us to do what matters most to us and to pay less attention to the verdicts of others. We see we cannot "afford to defer forever, for the sake of propriety, our underlying commitments to ourselves."

Ruins! They comfort us, reveal our "punishingly high-minded sense of the gravity of what we are doing," our own exaggerated self-importance. Our miseries are tied to the grandiosity of our ambitions.

Community

We all have the same vulnerabilities and the same two driving forces: fear, and a desire for love.

The Christian would say that there is no such thing as a stranger, "only an impression of strangeness born of failure to acknowledge that others share both our needs and our weaknesses."

Christianity attempts to enhance the value we place on community -- through ritual (a transcendent intermediary) and through music (great leveller and social alchemist -- we see that others respond as we do, which forges connection).

Twin Cities

Jesus is the model for Christians' understanding of status. He has two different sides, as ordinary carpenter and as the holiest of men. We can see the difference between earthly status (determined by occupation, income, others' opinions) and spiritual status (related to one's soul and merits in God's eyes).

The City of God, Augustine, 427 AD: All human action can be interpreted from either the Christian or the Roman (earthly) perspective, which are different. Christian status derives from humility, generosity, recognition of one's dependence on God, etc.

Divine Comedia, Dante, 1315: Dante's Hell is home to many who enjoyed high status while they lived.

Christian lore asserts the superiority of spiritual over material success and endows its virtues with "a seductive seriousness and beauty" through music, art, literature, architecture, etc. "Through its command of aesthetic resources, of buildings, paintings and Masses, Christianity created a bulwark against the authority of earthly values and kept its spiritual concerns in the public eye."

Heydey of cathedrals, 1130-1530.

Christianity never abolished the Earthly City or its values, but that we retain any distinction between wealth and virtue is largely due to the impression left on Western consciousness by Christianity.

DontDateHimGirl.com Gives Women A Place To Go and Get Revenge On Jerks

2008-07-11T21:24:33+02:00

Wow! Long gone are the days where a woman would simply sit back and cry after being burned by a man. I was just on a site called Don’t Date Him Girl where women post the names of men they have dated who turned out to be cheaters, liars and abusers! The site was started a few years ago by a woman who was cheated on by her boyfriend and she decided to post his picture and details online along with her story to get her revenge and keep other girls from making the mistake she did by dating him. It snowballed from there because other women started sending in their stories and pics of the men who had jerked them around. The site now features not only listings of men who have done women wrong, but also dating advice, articles, news and more!I personally would rather handle a situation a little but more privately, but you gotta give the girl credit for standing up for herself and for the success of her website which has turned into a whole online social community! As a woman who has been burned, you can feel pretty helpless when you realize that the man you loved misled you and treated you like dirt, so there is something cool about seeing women fighting back and helping other woman to not make the same mistake they did.The site isn’t only limited to getting revenge on lying jerks; it also aims at empowering women and the articles include advice on how to be successful in all areas of your life and it encourages women to share any advice that might be helpful to another woman.In my book, Single Moms Dating Guide to Catching the Man of Your Dreams in 30 Days, I talk about how important it is to check out a man before you get serious, and this site is one place where you can search his name for free. You never know what you’ll find out!Checking out the listings of the jerks makes for a pretty fun afternoon if you’ve got nothing else going on and have some time to kill online. You really do see it all; from guys who stole from women to guys giving girls herpes! Nasty!

A Sad But True Story

2008-07-11T21:03:38+02:00

A friend of mine has gone through something that makes me realize how important a lot of what I preach in my book is. I constantly stress the importance of making sure that you really know someone before sleeping with them to bringing them home around your child(ren). I have even recommended that you go as far as having a background check done on your man and people often think that is being a little excessive and going overboard, but when you hear what happened to a woman I know; you will realize that I am right.Imagine meeting a man that has all of the amazing qualities that you’ve been looking for, falling in love and moving in with him. You want to get married but he gives you a song and dance about how it will happen, just not yet and keeps putting it off and you keep accepting his excuses and find yourself still living with him eight years later! You don’t really understand why he won’t marry you, but you love him and stay because your love and hope keeps you there. One day you get a call that he has died in a car accident and you’re whole world comes crashing down. All of your hopes and dreams for the future wiped away because of an accident and you are left devastated. You can’t imagine feeling any worse when you stumble upon a whole bunch of information about him that you never know. The death of a relative seems to bring everyone out of the woodwork; from those paying their respects to those looking for anything of material value that the dead may have left behind. Imagine after all of that time and then dealing with the death of the man that you love and had spent almost a decade with; children that you never knew he had begin to surface! Five different children from three different mothers—none of which he ever mentioned and you never had any idea existed!You really do believe that you know someone after eight years and some are even convinced after only a couple of months that they know their man inside out! Love can make us do crazy things, including compromising our own safety, sanity and even our lives because we let our hearts rule and tune out what our heads and loved ones are telling us.My friend devoted the last eight years of her life to a man who wouldn’t marry her, only to find out that he had been lying from day one. She wanted marriage, but thought that she was doing the right thing by compromising since the timing wasn’t right yet for him. She spent eight years sleeping with the enemy so to speak! Imagine seeing that man’s face every night and every morning for eight years and finding out that he was pretty much a stranger to you because he had a whole other life that you never knew about and that he obviously went out of his way to keep hidden.Take note of all of this and realize that I am not being paranoid and just too old fashion when I stress the importance of checking up on a man before things get too serious and of not living with someone before marriage. She lost the years that they were together, will lose a few more trying to deal with and move on from what she’s been through and have trouble loving again and all because she allowed it to happen. I hate to use her as an example, but she wants other women to learn from her mistakes.Check out my Single Moms Dating Guide to Catching the Man of Your Dreams in 30 Days, for more on how to find out all about his past before committing to him as well as reasons why living together before marriage is a mistake.

The Day..

2008-06-15T06:50:00+02:00

15th June.. The day has arrived once again.. 2 years have passed. Two whole fucking years. The day which was suposed to be the happiest day of my life, turned out to be saddest.

You are gone, though you are still remembered.

REY!

Prison

2008-06-13T11:00:14+02:00

Last April, I woke up one morning to be told my cousin had been in a car accident and was lying in hospital, critically injured. The two passengers of the second car had died. My mum was distraught. I felt slightly numb, not knowing what to do in this situation, worrying if he was going to be ok. We shortly found out there was a question as to his alcohol blood level at the time of the crash. My cousin was devastated. He couldn’t believe he’d killed two people, an elderly mother and her daughter. One moment, one evening of stupidity, and two families’ lives had been ruined. He had had three pints over the space of three hours or so. I know it’s inexcusable, but I can’t find it in me to blame him. I think it would have happened whether he’d been drinking or not. Three weeks ago, he was sentenced to 5 years in prison, needing to serve at least 2.5 years. He was sent to a category A prison until they found somewhere else for him. Category A is where they hold extreme escape-risk offenders, killers, sex offenders. My cousin, who rightly accepts his sentence, commented on the disgusting, grimy, cockroach-infested state of the prison. I feel I should comment on this, as I was speaking to some people recently, who seem to think prison life is a luxurious and easy one. It is indeed a punishment, if for the disgusting surroundings, the lack of contact with people, being stuck in the same small cell for 22 hours a day. True, there are some unexpected ‘luxuries’, my cousin has a television in his cell and a toilet. Those who think these things as luxury need only to put them in the context of imprisonment and cell confinement. The main thing I’ve learnt from all of this is how much the decisions of one person affect so many others. Not only have the family of the deceased been destroyed by what’s happened, the family of my cousin have crumpled. The day after the sentencing, my elderly Nan said to my mum, ‘I just can’t see the point in getting up and getting dressed’. For someone of her age, who has suffered a lot in the past few years, it’s too much to cope with. I don’t think my cousins parents will ever forgive themselves or him, for this. In the year since it’s happened, they’ve turned from a happy, youthful family, to one burdened with guilt, which is clearly visible on their faces, every time you see them. I still can’t quite comprehend what has happened here, that someone I know has caused this misery. None of us will ever forget, or fully forgive him. I feel for him though. He put himself in this position, but was in a way, unlucky that the result was so extreme. There are so many things that could have been different. I want to write to him in prison, but I don’t just want to send a letter. I thought about writing him a comic strip, so he has something different to occupy his mind, something to keep him alert, to get him away from the monotony of his life. Not that I’m an artist, or have even any vague art skills, but it’s something to do, and it might help both me and him and give us purpose. I need some inspiration. Having recently read ‘Persepolis’, which I found both humourous and informative, I’d like to do something along these lines, but without coming across too preachy. I need a character. I considered doing a strip based on the character ‘Falco’ from the Lindsey Davis novels (roman private eye, with a sharp wit and a mischievious smile). But I’m open to anything.Any ideas?

Nuala O'Faolain RIP (1940 - 2008)

2008-05-26T11:50:00+02:00

Have you heard about Irish writer Nuala O'Faolain's response to her terminal diagnosis? I'm very attracted to the way she chose to live her last months, to her grief and depression as she says goodbye to what she finds meaningful and beautiful, and to her honesty as she faces the end of her time on earth.

The Guardian has the story and obituary; below are some excerpts from an interview with her at independent.ie in mid-April. She died on 9 May, about two-and-a-half months after her diagnosis, at age 68:

"I was just reading about some best-selling man who says 'Live your dream to the end' and so on and I don't despise anyone who does, but I don't see it that way. Even if I gained time through the chemotherapy it isn't time I want. Because as soon as I knew I was going to die soon, the goodness went out of life. ...

"It amazed me, Marian, how quickly life turned black, immediately almost.

"For example, I lived somewhere beautiful, but it means nothing to me anymore -- the beauty. For example, twice in my life I have read the whole of Proust. I know it sounds pretentious, but it's not a bit. It's like a huge soap opera. But I tried again the week before last and it was gone, all the magic was gone from it.

"And I'm not nice or anything -- I'm not getting nicer. I'm sour and difficult you know. I don't know how my friends and family are putting up with me, but they are, heroically. And that is one of the things you learn."

"You see, the cancer is a very ingenious enemy and when you ask somebody how will I actually die? How do you actually die of cancer ?... I don't get an answer because It could be anything.

"It can move from one organ to the other, it can do this that or the other. It's already in my liver, for example. So I don't know how it's going to be. And that overshadows everything."

She says that she doesn't believe in an afterlife, or an individual creator, and goes on:

"Let poor human beings believe what they want, but to me its meaningless. ... And yet I want to mention one thing that you might play at the end, particularly for dying people, ... a song I heard a few years ago 'Thois I Lar an Glanna' -- a kind of modern song sung by Albert Fry and other Donegal singers. And the last two lines are two things, asking God up there in the heavens, even though you don't believe in him, to send you back even though you know it can't happen. Those two things sum up where I am now. (Crying)"

"I am sick, but I am trying to say goodbye. So much has happened and it seems such a waste of creation that with each death all that knowledge dies. [and all that experience ... ]

"I think there's a wonderful rule of life that means that we do not consider our own mortality. I know we seem to, and remember, 'man thou art but dust', but I don't believe we do. I believe there is an absolute difference between knowing that you are likely to die, let's say within the next year, and not knowing when you are going to die -- an absolute difference."

The interviewer asks: "One of the things that you wrote about and wrote about is that what you thought mattered in life was passion?" to which O'Faolain responds:
"That seems a bit silly now. What matters now in life is health and reflectiveness. I just shot around. I would like it if I had been a better thinker.

MF: What about the passion?

NO'F: The passion can go and take a running jump at itself, that's what it can take.

MF: And love?

NO'F: Well, love's different, but I always [get the] two mixed up anyway."

"I know everyone says the hair matters, but that is not true. You can put a little cap on or something for the hair. That is irrelevant compared with having to leave the world behind."

Termination of the Cycle

2008-05-18T09:00:00+02:00

As and when we achieve immortality, the cycle of birth and death for ourselves is terminated - but this termination is in itself part of the cycle.

Discovery of What Is

2008-05-15T15:01:23+02:00

With the comment interchange about paths and truth in my mind, and a sermon from worship recently also fresh, I came upon a chapter titled "Creation in Christ" in James Alison's On Being Liked that I think is useful in considering how we think about everything, and specifically in the context of this conversation about Truth, Reality, God, the "something" that Mike posits in his comments.

It's a chapter that challenges the usual way of thinking about "the great panorama of Christian salvation," which is linear and logical: first creation, then fall, then salvation, then heaven. Alison rearranges it all, coming from a fundamental insight that we can explain creation only from the vantage point of salvation. We're not external viewers. We see everything only from where we are now. As Alison says, "our access to creation is present, as is our access to the past. ... The only access we have to the past is the access for which our present understanding equips us." Obvious, yes, and easily unacknowledged.

He also posits that "the answer to the question 'Where do we come from?' is narrated from within the schemes of power and social order which are in force. And the answer tends to maintain and shore up this order. ... [T]he description of the origins comes from an understanding of 'social' salvation which was already in evidence within the group in question."

In other words, creation stories come from a group that feels successfully ordered and constituted, and the stories are used to explain how it all happened in a way that necessarily supports the current standing. "The description of what things 'are' is strictly dependent on what they now 'ought' to be. ... [T]he perception of God is tied to the social world." Alison's claim (and Girard's) is that the Jewish scriptures divert from the usual creation stories in important ways (read the book for more on that).

Alison's major argument in the chapter is that by detoxifying death, Jesus opens us all to creation as it is and to the possibility of participating in bringing creation into being, now, every day:

"Part of the process of the discovery of creation is the discovery of an astonishing freedom with respect to what is, since what is seen and perceived, and what is are different things. When we see and perceive, we do so still partially from within a world formed by our systems of order, of security, of identity, guaranteed in the last resort by death. And what is is not strictly attainable from within a mentality formed in this way."

(These sentences seem to me to go to the heart of both the problem with strict adherence or allegiance to a path (to a point where its protection requires a defense of what is perceived as 'the sacred') and also the desirability of emptying the mind of knowledge -- necessarily beholden to perception, to interpretation -- as a way towards an experience of what is.)

Alison goes on to say that "to the degree to which we cease to have our mind and heart formed by death, we cease having our mind formed by the perception that the social 'other'" is hostile or ambivalent, and we can discover that 'the other' is "benevolent, limpid, without ambivalence and without ambiguity. That is to say, the relationship between God and everything that is, is gratuitous and trustworthy. And if it is to be trusted, then we need not fear discovering the truth about what is, however little convenient that might seem in its social repercussions." His major point here is that what we discover is "something that is present, and able to be lived in the here and now." We can put into practice ourselves "the same overcoming of our culture shot through with death, trusting in a generosity that does not know death, and which will take care of us."

The tricky part of all this is that Alison's discovery about God or reality or what-have-you -- anything -- is discovered from the vantage point of where he is now. And my discovery, and yours.

(I'm on the road this week and don't have time to parse this further online but may return to it later.)

seed friday

2008-05-02T22:35:00+02:00

Please visit

2008-05-02T14:51:10+02:00

all parents, please visit my site for information to make sure your child is safe anywhere near the water.www.ceffoundation.org

Why no lifejackets

2008-05-01T16:09:00+02:00

How is it I left my son at a place that promised me to watch him close (Lifeguard was our babysitter)but wouldnt allow life jackets since they cause kids to play so rough. He was only there on his first day for 2 hours. How can I ever forgive myself and not be overbearing on my other kids?

Disgust, Boundaries and Mortality

2008-04-15T01:28:48+02:00

A long article in Psychology Today ("Mystery of disgust" by Erik D'Amato, 1998), examining what makes something disgusting, and why, contains this interesting bit:

"[E]ach area of disgust is, in its own way, a jarring reminder of our animal nature. The things that most disgust us -- defecating, dying, giving birth, eating dubious or unclean foods -- are the very traits we most conspicuously share with other animals.

"Perhaps it's no coincidence that the only body product we generally don't find disgusting is tears -- the only one considered uniquely human.

"Social disgust operates much the same way, according to [Jonathan] Haidt: 'If physical disgust is about distinguishing ourselves from animals, then social disgust is about distinguishing ourselves from "demons." "Human being" is a charged category, and we want to keep its boundaries clearly defined. Someone who cheats on his taxes can be human; someone who eats human flesh cannot. Socially disgusting acts are those that reveal that you have inhuman motives.'"

"The reason such reminders of our 'animality' are so harrowing may be equally uncomplicated: any reminder of our animal nature is also a reminder of our own mortality. Certainly, we can coolly discuss death and even come to terms with it; indeed, the knowledge of life's precariousness is singularly human. But it is also the most crucial threat to the psyche, and as such must be repressed. No wonder so much of what we find disgusting relates to death and illness: blood, boils, amputations, and mutilations suggest the fragility of life; corpses and body parts simply verify it."

So -- things disgust us to the extent that they remind us that we, like all animals, die?

What interests me particularly about this is that many of the people I've known in real life and through books who have been most willing to sacrifice their very lives for others' benefit -- which amounts to a "crucial threat to the psyche" -- have also been those most easily disgusted and repulsed by hospitals, corpses, bodily functions gone awry, and physical mutilations.

What's going on there?

via TMN

New York Stories: The Death Stakes, Table Waiting, and Driving in the City

2008-03-31T17:45:00+02:00

Several today:

In the NYT, an article today about people who eschew public transportation in NYC, although "80 percent of the people who drive into Manhattan during the workday already have access to mass transit that would take no more than 15 minutes longer." Some of the reasons for driving even with cheap and reliable public transportation available: include enhanced freedom and flexibility; "the ability to avoid dealing with other people;" the car is more comfortable (plusher, wired for sound and ... video?); dislike of waiting, standing, and "the hassle" of the subway (prefering the hassle of driving, finding a place to park, having to feed the meter multiple times); a desire for a few minutes more sleep; dislike of walking; and transporting a dog.

---

In the Telegraph today, Phoebe Damrosch provides tantalising bits of her experience as a head waiter in a posh and celebrity-frequented NYC restaurant. Her book about it, Service Included: Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter, was published in September. Training for the job was a rigorous 3-month indoctrination into rules, cooking procedures and ingredients, "philosophies, uniforms, elaborate rituals and an unspoken code of honour."

Allergies were ubiquitous: "When we learnt in the pre-shift meeting that, due to a serious allergy, the host [a famous comedian] requested there be no truffles on the menu, a colleague leaned over and whispered, 'What percentage of the population even knows it's allergic to truffles?'" and "Celebrities love to be allergic to things, including any or all of the following: nuts, fish with scales, fish without scales, shellfish, all fish, wheat, dairy, sugar, chocolate, egg yolks, duck eggs, onions, garlic, pineapple, mango, peppers, fennel -- the list goes on. Either that or they are so bored by good food that they have to spice it up by asking for an all-mushroom tasting menu (as a famous newsreader did)."

More at Super Chef, The Amateur Gourmet, NYT review.

---

This one's not about NYC per se :-) but after watching a few episodes of The Real Housewives of New York City -- where there's pathetically cut-throat competition to look young, to seem hip, to have status -- I feel sure it applies. It's Michael Kinsley in The New Yorker writing about the competition among Boomers, in particular, for "longest life" and "shortest death." (Kinsley himself is 57 and has Parkinson's disease.)

"What's more, of all the gifts that life and luck can bestow -- money, good looks, love, power -- longevity is the one that people seem least reluctant to brag about. In fact, they routinely claim it as some sort of virtue -- as if living to ninety were primarily the result of hard work or prayer, rather than good genes and never getting run over by a truck. Maybe the possibility that the truck is on your agenda for later this morning makes the bragging acceptable. The longevity game is one that really isn't over till it's over."

"And even if you add a few years through your own initiative, by doing all the right things in terms of diet, exercise, sleep, vitamins, and so on, why is that to your moral credit? Extending your own life expectancy is the most selfish motive imaginable for doing anything. Do it, by all means. I do. But for heaven’s sake don’t take a bow and expect applause."

He also points out that it's not a zero-sum game; if I die young, that doesn't mean you live longer. What's odd is that it seems like a zero-sum game. Reading the obituaries can imbue the completely false belief that because these folks have died, and particularly if they are younger than I am, then I'm spared. I'm alive, they're dead, I win. Weird. Kinsley does compare the competition to live longest to a tontine, an estate-planning device well-known to Agatha Christie fans, where "the amount you got back depended on how many of your fellow-investors you outlived." In this case, outliving someone else doesn't ensure that you will be long-lived (much less happily lived) but you'll be rewarded with a warm feeling of having out-endured your friends, enemies and peers, even as you miss them and wish they were still around.

As far as the short death goes, I must be the orderly type: "Or, if you’re the orderly type, you might prefer a brisk but not sudden slide into oblivion. Take a couple of months, pain-free but weakening in some vague nineteenth-century way." Sounds good to me. Of course, Kinsley reminds us, "The government statistics on how people die are lavish and fascinating. Let's forget for a moment that it's a catalogue you can't really shop from" (other than the suicide option).

Kinsley says, "I was around fifty when I went public about having Parkinson's, and the effect was like turning sixty." I love that sentence.

He goes on, "A person who is sixty and healthy almost surely will live many more years. But sixty is about the age when people stop being surprised if you look old or feel sick or drop dead. (It's another decade or so before they stop pretending to be surprised.)"

He says that "only in life's last chapter do the differences [in how old we feel and are perceived to be] get enormous. We are not shocked to see a seventy-one-year-old hobbling on a cane, or bedridden in a nursing home, and we are not shocked to see a seventy-one-year-old running for President. The huge variety of possible outcomes -- all of them falling within the range considered 'normal' -- makes the last boomer competition especially dramatic. So does the speed at which aging can happen. Sometimes it's even instantaneous. Fall, break your hip, and add ten years."

RIP Delhi, 1946-2008

2008-03-13T00:44:49+01:00

An elephant died yesterday.

Delhi, an elephant at the Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, TN, died early yesterday morning in her sleep after a time of decline (you can read about her last days here).

She came to the sanctuary in 2004, having been confiscated by the USDA after she was neglected and harmed by the Hawthorne Corp., which lends elephants to circuses.

An email from the Elephant Sanctuary today said that "while her sisters and caregivers slept, Delhi made her transition. Her passing was silent and peaceful, she passed without waking. We are all spending the day honoring our last precious hours with her; caregivers are still fussing around her, whispering quiet goodbyes. Misty carefully touched all over Delhi's body and then gently stepped over her, sheltering her dearly departed friend."

There will be a memorial page for Delhi at the ES website soon.

Vanity

2008-03-08T14:40:00+01:00

Though empty tomorrows

can hold an uncertain promise

our story had been told

We said our goodbyes

wearing warm feelings and smiles

but inside our hearts had run cold

Against all odds

I never saw you again

except for once

but as tall shadows hid me

I just sat there silently

watching you enjoy a hearty lunch

You looked so good

better than I remembered

in the warm shine of that midday sun

and I didn't want you to see

what had become of me

this slightly let-herself-go mom

Vanity-driven I wanted to look my best

whenever we would meet

and not get caught on a bad hair day

but I sure would've loved to hear your voice

and today I regret I made such an idle choice

For here in your casket you lay

and though my varnish has severely cracked

I sit here picture-perfect

on this old hardwood bench

trying so hard to remember

the rich and lovely timbre

I'll never hear again

Multiple friday

2008-02-22T17:50:00+01:00

In a sense, I think. In many cultures, labyrinths are associated with death. In some beliefs, the labyrinth is thought of as a guide to and through the underworld. Death is naturally scary to any mortal. And I shall stop my rambling before I lose my point completely.

Ageism

2008-01-30T13:05:00+01:00

My Open Wallet, a blog written by a female New Yorker, looks at the recent NYT article ("Nice Résumé. Have You Considered Botox?") about women, aging, and job security. Or is it about job security? Based on the study mentioned in the article and by My Open Wallet, one's age may influence hiring behaviour, particularly for entry level jobs, but we can't deduce anything about how influential looking old is in the hiring process.

More telling, I thought, was this from the original article:

"Many people would shun a book if it were titled 'How Not to Look Jewish' or 'How Not to Look Gay' because to cater to discrimination is to capitulate to it. But the success of 'How Not to Look Old' indicates that popular culture is willing to buy into ageism as an acceptable form of prejudice, even against oneself."

I admit it: I'm aging. So are you. Perhaps My Open Wallet's conclusion, and mine, is simplistic -- 'fear of aging' is code for 'fear of dying,' which can actually happen any time but is more likely to happen the older one is. Fear of aging may also intertwine with 'fear of losing control' -- of reproductive ability, of the ability to attract or keep a partner, of one's bladder, of one's ability to see and hear well, of the car keys and driver's license, of choosing where one lives, of managing one's own money, of one's intellectual capacity, and so on.

It's almost laughable that the book cover jacket apparently says "Looking hip is not just about vanity anymore, it's critical to every woman's personal and financial survival." In fact, the author of the book, More magazine columist Charla Krupp, believes that her book "'is hitting a nerve because I am giving not looking old a spin as if your life depended on it.'" On the contrary, "looking hip" is not going to lead to survival; it won't keep any of us alive.

RIP Oscar Peterson, 15 Aug. 1925 - 23 Dec. 2007

2007-12-26T16:30:00+01:00

I heard on All Things Considered Monday that great jazz pianist Oscar Peterson had died the day before, at age 82. Today Sheila Lennon at Projo offers a short list of links to mp3s, including Peterson playing The Christmas Waltz, and obits. More at NPR here and here, and at Wikipedia.

The Banshee

2007-12-15T16:05:00+01:00

A hollow wind blew wild

the nights she came at our door

bewailing the misfortune

about to fall upon our home

in her mournful lament

As she moves

through the sullen shadows

no opportunity of light

from moon or stars

she casts her cry into the night

grabbing hold of your mind

Leading you

unaware of your fate

through a dense curtain of mist and rain

into the raging sea below

where underneath the drowning water

your destiny awaits

Hushed Morning

2007-11-11T15:15:00+01:00

In peaceful slumbers

your last hours pass gracefully

while morphine drips into your veins

When all hope had flown

you chose to leave this world

unaware of the unbearable pain

We said all we possibly could say

while waiting for you to fall asleep

and in sedate silence now I hold your hand

and listen how you breathe

You barely draw in while the sun rises

and the pauses in between augment

until suddenly your sighs are hushed

just as the morning that took your last breath

RIP Norman Mailer, 31 Jan. 1923 - 10 Nov. 2007

2007-11-10T19:30:00+01:00

Iconic and stridently opinionated American author Norman Mailer died early this morning of kidney failure, about a month after surgery to remove scar tissue around his lungs. He became famous for The Naked And The Dead, published in 1948, a "World War II tale [that] is universally recognized as one of the best war novels to emerge from that conflict." He won Pulitzers in 1968 for an account of the 1967 Vietnam War protest march on the Pentagon, The Armies of the Night, and in 1979 for The Executioner's Song, a novel about self-confessed murderer Gary Gilmore. Mailer published dozens of novels -- his latest, The Castle in the Forest, a fictionalised account of Hitler's childhood told by an underling of Satan's, came out this year -- as well as stories, essays, and newspaper articles, and he co-founded The Village Voice, an alternative newspaper in New York.

USA Today captures much of Mailer's outlook:

"Mailer remained opinionated even as he aged. In his 80s, he fiercely criticized President Bush and the Iraq war, as reflected in his last book, On God, published in October. ... Mailer lambasted Bush as 'one of the Devil's clients. And every time he feels that Jesus is talking to him, count on it, Satan is in his ear.'

"He found much of American culture, from publishing to architecture, 'much less agreeable' than it was when he was young. The country is uglier, he said, decrying how towns and cities look alike and 'measure themselves by the size of their shopping malls.'

"He recalled when 'corporations used to have some pride in their products. Now they have pride in their marketing.. .. Anyone can sell a good product, but to sell a piece of crap, now that takes real talent.'

"The women's movement may have 'opened up life for young women,' but he called it 'a middle-class revolution' that benefits 'corporate angels in their tailored suits.' It was 'welcomed by the corporation that now hires women at every level but the very top and pays them 80% or so of what it pays men.' ...

"He told USA Today that 'every woman, unlike every man -- and this is where I get in trouble with the feminists -- is like a culture unto herself, with all the roots and tendrils that make up a culture.' Being married six times, 'is like living in six different countries, six cultures. So if you've spent eight years in Paris, then moved on, you don't say, "I hate Paris."'

And from the lengthy New York magazine interview:

"For the average person in the average developed country, life, if seen in terms of comfort, is better than it was in the middle of the nineteenth century, but by the measure of our human development as ethical, spiritual, responsible, and creative human beings, it may be worse. Reason, ultimately, looks to strip us of the notion that there is a Creator. The moment you have a society built on reason alone, then individual power begins to substitute for the concept of a Creator.

"Progressivism has yet to prove itself. We live in a more diffuse state of general anxiety than people did in 1900. I don’t want to be a bore about this, but nuclear warfare also came along. The argument: Did we really improve anything spiritually?"

________________________________________________________________________________________

Obituaries and Remembrances:

USA Today, the most interesting of the obits so far
NYT (AP)
BBC
NPR: The Literary Legacy of Norman Mailer
Salon: Remembering Norman Mailer through his books, by AO Scott
2007 interview with Mailer at EW.com
2007 interview with Mailer in New York magazine

(Photo: Johannes Kroemer/Getty Images)

So Many Dead and Dying

2007-10-13T22:37:18+02:00

On Thursday, to my knowledge, a bird and a woman died. The bird, a pet parakeet belonging to a friend, died at 11:03 a.m., after a long life; the woman, a friend of a friend, and an acquaintance of mine, died at 8:04 p.m., after a relatively short life (48 years), one that seems cut terribly short. Both deaths were witnessed by people who love the dying creatures, who were sad they were leaving, who found it hard to watch them die, who cried, who mourn and grieve, who will remember. In the case of the woman's death, other lives will also change, and perhaps major decisions will be made because she is gone, because she was here.

On Thursday, if it was an 'average' day, about 155,000 people died around the world (and about 363,000 people are born). It's hard to comprehend that one or two people die every second. Since I started typing this 10 minutes ago, if this day is average, about 1,000 people who were alive when I started are now dead. Their lives and deaths change other lives.

I can't find any statistics online about global animals deaths per day, but it must be in the billions, counting insects and microbes. Even considering only mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and birds -- pets, animals in the wild, farm animals, circus and zoo animals, animals killed by hunting and human transportation and slaughterhouses -- millions must die every split second.

I'm not railing against death. True, it seems an odd system, but then so is birth. As long as we have birth and a finite planet, death makes some 'sense', I guess, or we'd run out of room even faster than we are.

What I'm thinking about here is just how incessant, constant, and ordinary death is, and how the death of someone we love feels so surprising and extraordinary to us.

Cutting down on sleep 'risks health'

2007-10-01T19:44:49+02:00

Cutting down on sleep 'risks health'
Researchers warned today of the perils of cutting down on sleep to accommodate the 24/7 culture as a new study was published suggesting such a move could almost double the risk of death

More information at: http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/information/news/?EntryId=50334&p=2

Nice to be back

2007-09-27T20:20:00+02:00

Oh my gosh!, I am so excited to be back home. I recently, came back from Chicago, where I spent two months of summer. Although, it was nice to part from my "life" in Canada, once in awhile, I really, missed all my friends and family. However, I am really glad to be back here! In a much more laid back environment where, I like it, just the way it is, nice and simple. My stay in Chicago was quite challenging. The reason I went there on the first place is heart breaking. I visited Chicago, to attend my uncle's funeral who recently passed- away due to pancreatic cancer. My family didn’t take this news lightly. They were heart broken and were full of grief. Last year, if you recall, my plan of visiting my relatives in Chicago was postponed, after learning that he is going to have an operation. But, later that month, I did have the chance to visit him. He was in remission for all most a year before he passed away. We were full of hope that he was going to able to pull through. I guess God has a better plan for him. It came as a shock when we learned that his condition was deteriorating. An animated person with full of life, who loves life, is now gone. It was hard for my family to realize that he is gone, especially to my aunt and my two cousins. I spent my summer there to give my aunt some company, during the “transitional” phase. I found myself in a quite difficult place though. Because, a summer of what seemed to be full fun, was changed with a single tragedy. I had a bunch of plans for the summer, go to New York and Montreal with my friends, volunteer and possibly work, and now it’s in a halt. But, I never regret staying in Chicago to help my aunt during those trying times in her life. People keep on asking her, “How are you doing?” and she’d normally answered, “I’m doing o.k.” which sometimes is not the case at all. I can see in her eyes, the deep sadness, anger and disbelief over what took place. It kinda pains me that, I was not able to ease the pain that she has intact inside. And, it still bothers me now. As a tribute to my uncle, my sister and I prepared a song, which we hoped to perform during the funeral. But instead I sang a song at the wake during his eulogy. I feel so stupid for not pulling myself together. I told myself that I was not going to cry, but, it happened anyway. During, the performance, I was feeling a little fazed, in my mind all I can think of is, “he is really gone”.

Crematorium loses organ

2007-09-14T14:10:00+02:00

On the other side of the river used to live a retired Doctor who made good money as a Crematorium Medical Referee. He gave permission for thousands of cremations until it was his turn to go up in smoke. A friend's father was a worker there, once the electrically operated curtain closed around the coffins. Another friend had a summer job at the Crematorium, cutting the grass on the remembrance lawns. He joked about the corpses rising out of coffins as the furnace lit, and the taste of ash in his mouth as the mower trimmed the grass. The crematorium is a smooth-running production line, twenty minute slots, one entrance for the bereaved, another exit, the next party already lined up outside.

While some make their living out of it, most of us like to avoid thoughts of death. In plague-ravaged 15th century Europe people felt differently. Ars Moriendi (The Art of Dying) was the most popular block-printed book. It gave simple instructions on how to meet death, avoid temptation, and make a triumphal entrance into Paradise.

People often say how quiet it is at night here, since we are less than three miles from Reading town. But the night is far from silent: aircraft into Heathrow, motorbikes along the main road, and late night trains, slicing the air, tearing down into Brunel's great cutting, four years to build and four lives lost.

At around 3.30am these sounds fade. This is the 'dead of the night'. On a windless night, you may just hear the clock on the church tower strike the hour. Most nights there is only the river, falling five feet over the weir. This is white noise, indifferent and unchanging, seemingly endless - the roaring sum of all sound and the sound of nothing.

In the crematorium chapel, there is a different kind of quiet, almost solid silence, stifling. Dark oak, the lectern and pews, and an organ. At my aunt's funeral a friend played Jerusalem for us at the end of the short service. William Blake's words, written in 1804 as a preface to his epic poem 'Milton'. Blake recalls the myth of a young Christ in Glastonbury and looks to a second coming when paradise will be attained. The music by Parry, for a rally of the votes for women campaign in 1918, with orchestral elaboration by Elgar. The organ played loud and strong, drowning our voices, making our hearts pound, filling the silence, and for a moment, there was hope.

What a pity it would be if the authorities were to strip out the organ and replace it with a juke box for hymns.

Kiss

2007-08-07T13:35:00+02:00

The bell rings

in the middle of the night

I fly to the door

worried

anticipating what might

Two cops

this isn't good

An accident they say

and speed me to the hospital

the siren wailing under the hood

Too late

words forever etched in my mind

They couldn't do a thing

and had to let you go

How can life be so unkind

Pitiless hospital room

you lie there as if in silent sleep

I take your hand

give you a kiss

and weep

Dutch Version:

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Zoen

De bel gaat

in het holst van de nacht

Ik vlieg naar de deur

ongerust

want ik heb op jou gewacht

Twee agenten

ik weet meteen dit is niet goed

Een ongeluk zeggen ze

en brengen me naar het ziekenhuis

met grote spoed

Bereid U maar voor op het ergste

de woorden echoën nog na in mijn hoofd

Je zou vroeg thuis zijn

vanavond

Je had het vanmorgen nog zo beloofd

Te laat

ze konden niets meer voor je doen

In een onverbiddelijke ziekenhuiskamer

ga ik bij je zitten

en geef je een laatste zoen