Dying immortal
A report in the Chicago-Sun Times,written by Roger K. Miller reviewed a new book by ‘Lisa Takeuchi Cullen’ called ‘Remember me: A lively tour of the new American way of death’.
The book grew out of an assignment for Time magazine, for which the author is a staff writer, about funeral trends among baby boomers. Roger writes, “She is no Jessica Mitford,whose 1963 book The American Way of Death muckraked the funeral industry. Cullen explores, rather, the changing ways that Americans choose to mark the end of their earthly existence, and the merchants -- she calls them "end-trepreneurs"- - who facilitate their choices.” Roger Miller’s review claims, “The style is brisk, occasionally bordering on chirpy. Her conclusion that "death is a big, huge bummer," though sounding flip and shallow, belies what is in general good, solid journalistic writing, enlivened by brief, witty analysis and personal/family asides.
She intersperses mini-biographies of the deceased -- and, one might put it, the pre-deceased -- to tell what brought them to their decisions concerning funeral arrangements.There are 22,000 funeral homes in the United States, 89 percent familyowned, many for generations. They contribute to an industry that takes in $20 billion in annual revenues (estimates vary). The National Funeral Directors Association recently put the average cost of a funeral at $6,500. Nothing in this book, however, is average. The funeral directors association is feeling a rumble of change caused, like so much in North American life, by the aging of baby boomers.
The number of cremations continually increases. One funeral director survey shows that 62 percent of boomers want a "personalised" funeral; another that 71 percent of respondents do not want a traditional funeral, and 14 percent specifically request "a party in my honour." Funeral directors have always had terrific stories, and they will only get better as the withering of customs and traditional families continues to chip away at restraints on our speech and behaviour. One tells of a widow who demanded the return of the deceased's penile implant. "I have my reasons," she said The author's travels while schlepping her infant daughter Mika -- she calls it "covering the dead beat as a new mom" -- take her to the country's first "green cemetery," in Westminster, S.C., where "bodies are buried in their natural state: no embalming, no upright tombstones, no fancy caskets." As the woman running the place puts it, green cemeteries are more than simply "a bunch of granolacrunching hippies doing pagan things." Apparently so: The funeral industry is already sniffing around to see if it could be the next big thing to exploit. The perfect apparel to wear to this party might be a biodegradable shroud. "Look beautiful -- in the last thing you'll ever wear!" the shroud's manufacturer crows.
That chapter is certainly interesting, but it is matched by the one about what is involved in turning your loved ones -- or, to be accurate, their cremated remains, or "cremains" -- into diamonds. Two sets of two brothers from Oak Park and elsewhere in the Chicago area set up a company called LifeGem to transform the carbon of people into the carbon of diamonds. Despite steep prices -- $2,500 to $14,000 for diamonds ranging from a quarter-carat to full carat -- business is good. Burial at sea is a steady seller, and there are several options.Your cremains can be mixed into a massive bolster of concrete and dropped into the water to help create an artificial reef.Or they can be dropped from an airplane, commonly into the sea, but also over other areas, though there are limits. A request to be scattered over the deceased's favorite bar didn't fly.Before ending her book by flying to her native Japan to attend her grandfather's very traditional funeral, Cullen strays into related areas: The Frozen Dead Guy Days festival in Nederland, Colo., that honours (in an aggressively commercial way) a cryonics visionary, and FAVs -- fantastic afterlife vehicles,such as lobster-shaped caskets - - and who is attending mortuary school these days (it's not just a generational matter anymore). As to the last, there can be fittingly curious perks: Says one Manhattan student, "You always get a subway seat when you're carrying a book with the big fat title Embalming."
The need for a memorial
New TV advertisements have begun airing in Brisbane, aimed at educating the public on the need to establish a memorial. There are three ads in the series which show the long term considerations that need to be made before you choose to scatter someone’s ashes. The ads carry the details of Albany Creek Memorial Park and Mt Thompson Memorial Gardens, but they serve to benefit the industry as a whole.
The first of the ads shows a lady taking flowers to her Mum for her birthday and it is not until half way through the ad that you realise her mother is no longer alive. The message here is that significant dates remain so even when someone dies. It shows the importance of having a focal point to which you can bring flowers or have someone quiet time to think about the impact that person had on your life.
The second ad shows the importance of a memorial for generations to come as a man takes his son to visit his father’s memorial. A memorial provides a marker and way of tracing someone’s life.
The third ad is a little more direct in that it speaks to those families who choose to scatter the ashes of a loved one. It shows a housing estate standing where a park once was in which ashes had once been scattered. The significance of this ad is that so many people to choose to scatter ashes, forgetting that there is no guarantee that that place will still be there for generations to come. It also reinforces the messages of the other two ads.
If you have a story about how
important a memorial has
been to you, please send it to
PEACE OF MIND at PO Box 488,
Roseville NSW 2069.
An Unusual Contest
In an attempt to further demystify the ‘funeral culture’, the Government of the Taiwanese city of Taipei took the unusual step of arranging a competition, for morticians. The event used real corpses with entrants judged on their preparation work, make-up skills, work attitude and finish-up work. Seven of the 15 contestants won outstanding awards. The judges were keen on details like how the morticians cleaned the faces, closed eyelids or mouths, applied face powder, did the hair and then sterilised their own fingers and tools afterwards. "Work attitude" included an assessment of whether the morticians were respectful towards the corpses.
Hsueh Cheng-tai, director of Taipei City Government's Social Affairs Bureau, praised the contest for having raised "the level of Taiwan's funeral service." "Dying and the dead are a taboo subject in Chinese society. But like the living, the dead also want to present their best side to the world.
So this make-up contest is very meaningful," he said. Morticians earn a good salary - - about US$1,500 per month, but the work is frowned upon by many who think it is unclean and could bring bad luck to the mortician. But Hsieh Pei-hua, 36, one of the seven winners, said earning the distinction had made her prouder of her work. "I was lucky because the corpse I handled was in good condition. Some corpses assigned to other contestants were semi-decomposed with eyes sunken and mouths open," she said."After this contest, I now realize I need to receive further training and improve my skills. Maybe I should go abroad," she said.
Fantasy Coffins
It’s not every day that you hear about a coffin auction…but a recent note drew our attention to www.ebay.com. au where unique ‘Fantasy Coffins’ being stored in Melbourne were up for sale. The Fantasy Coffins were commissioned at Paa Joe’s Carpentry Workshop in Ghana, West Africa for Festival Melbourne 2006, the Cultural Festival of the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games. Fantasy Coffins from Ghana are collected by individuals, art galleries and museums throughout the world..
A Different Custom
The words ‘stripper’ and ‘funeral’ are not something you tend to read about in the same sentence. Believe it or not, in China stripping at funerals is being outlawed. That is to say, stripping at funerals has been acceptable until now! Five strippers were detained and local officials "issued notices concerning funeral management." Police apparently swooped when two groups of strippers gave "obscene performances" at a farmer's funeral in Donghai County, Jiangsu province, according to the Xinhua news agency. The disrobing served a higher purpose, the report noted. "Striptease used to be a common practice at funerals in Donghai's rural areas to allure viewers," it said. "Local villagers believe that the more people who attend the funeral, the more the dead person is honoured".
The crackdown by authorities came after two troupes were invited to strip off at the funeral of a villager called Liang. The agency said about 200 villagers, including children, rolled up to Liang's funeral. Better-off families usually hired two troupes it said. Wealthy families often employed two troupes of performers to make funerals "more bustling" and attract a crowd. Now village officials must submit plans for funerals within 12 hours after a villager dies. And residents can report "funeral misdeeds" on a hotline, the report said. After the arrests, local police issued notices banning stripping at funerals and gave a hotline number for people to report on funeral misdeeds, the report said. The report said callers to the hotline were in line for a reward of about $50.
Men of Mortuaries Calendar
Men of Mortuaries, is the brainchild of California funeral home director Ken McKenzie, whose calendar of 12 bodybuilder morticians will benefit breast cancer patients. McKenzie, whose sister is a breast cancer survivor, said he wanted to find a way to help patients struggling with finances. According to McKenzie, "Whenever you hear about a funeral director it's a guy in a suit in the corner with a hump on their back. The hardest part was finding 12 attractive funeral directors.
That just doesn't happen. This industry is just not known for that." Monies raised from the calendar will directly benefit KAMM foundation dedicated to the caring and assistance of people who are going through the treatment of breast cancer. Proceeds will provide these people assistance with such necessities as child care costs and groceries, to name just two. The primary goal of KAMM is to provide people going through cancer with more opportunities to make their lives better. If you want to buy a calendar you can visit the website www.menofmortuaries.com
Eternal Preservation Incorporated
Not since the invention of embalming the human body, in the 1860’s, has anything more revolutionary been accomplished than preserving the human body forever. This is exactly what Eternal Preservation Inc (EPI) can do for people that want the very best in burial services.
EPI will preserve the whole human body (organs, hair, skin, skeleton, brain, etc.) in the state the body was in at the time of death. EPI will do this by polymer preserving the body by the patented chemicals and processes licensed by Dow Corning Corporation to Corcoran Laboratories, Inc. EPI has established an opportunity for individuals that wish to have the ultimate in a preservation for burial that is not available or can be found anywhere else in the world today.
The process to preserve an individual is by polymer preservation, or more commonly known as “plastination”. The chemicals that we use come from Dow Corning and are the only ones we know of, at this time that will preserve a whole human body with the skin and all the organs intact. Polymer preservation or plastination, is a five-step process that will be taught to every laboratory that is working under a license agreement from Eternal Preservation, Inc.