“I firmly believe that those who have confronted it have a whole different spirit in them that gives them energy.” A great report on a New Zealand town’s ‘Coffin Club’, a non-profit organisation that helps elderly people prepare and come to terms with death by engaging them in the creative process of their casket.
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Should We Die?
A super, at times jovial, article that engages with some of the Transhumanist thinkers positing a future where we make the decision about when our lives end. They share wild and optimistic expectations for a deathless society, and along the way it also might help us toward some other useful tool.
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Bowie, Prince, Cohen & The Quiet Power Of Public Grief
“We mourn musicians because they shared the best of themselves. They shared their art: those abstract, tender expressions of feeling and intellect set to word, rhythm and song, which either emerged from their mouths and their fingers like magic or alchemy, or were worked at, or finely whittled down, for them and for us.”
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Alpha to Omega: Introductory Field Guide to Decoding Cemetery Symbols
Who knew there’s a cemetery code to decipher? E.g. “A winged hourglass is clear but poignant: it quite literally signifies the notion that time flies (and life is short).” It’ll remind you of that of time you attempted to learn Ancient Egyptian.
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The Jack the Ripper Content Economy
A fascinating look at the enduring history of Jack the Ripper and how we must admit that after all this time, the interest cannot be about the attempt to solve the mystery but just our lust for gore, as seen in our various recent entertainment: Ripper St; Jack the Ripper Museum; They All Love Jack etc.
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A YOUNG WOMAN CALLED DEATH…
Why is a meeting with death always a meeting with a man? The same could be said for a meeting with a chief executive, I suppose, and that’s the point. A really interesting article looks at the personification of the grim reaper in literature and how it reflects our society at large.
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LEONARD COHEN MAKES IT DARKER
An extended profile of the now 82-year-old Leonard Cohen ahead of the release of his latest album. Some of the press that’s reacted to this interview have suggested that this is an album which is foreseeing his own death but in truth he’s been singing about death since he was in his early twenties.
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CEMETERY OF SILENCE
fourbythree magazine take a distinctly philosophical perspective in an interview with Thai film director, Apichatpong Weerasethakul. He discusses time, Buddhism, death and censorship, among other topics. “When you are marginalised it forces you to question your fear of being silenced and how you will deal with it.”
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Coming of age in a city coming apart
A fascinating longform profile piece of a Baltimore teenager attempting to break from the history of violence all around him, by graduating from his academy, attending a college, getting a job; all uncertainties in a place where lack of opportunity stymies and criminalises the black population.
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