Althouse: "You can be embalmed with formaldehyde and placed in a coffin underground; cremated in a furnace; left out in the open air..."

November 1, 2022

"You can be embalmed with formaldehyde and placed in a coffin underground; cremated in a furnace; left out in the open air..."

"... liquefied in an alkaline solution; composted under a pile of mulch; frozen in a cryogenic container; mummified; planted at the roots of a sapling. Ed Bixby, who owns 13 cemeteries around the country, said a new technique of treating dead bodies comes into fashion every year or so. Would you rather not have your ashes compressed into a diamond? Then how about freeze-drying your body and vibrating it into dust? But, Mr. Bixby added, nothing has managed to outlive cremation and embalming and burial: 'Everyone just goes with the norm because that’s what’s normal.'"

From "The Fading Art of Preserving the Dead/A dwindling group of professionals is tasked with navigating the often fraught passage from life to death" (NYT).

17 comments:

Achilles said...: Rituals for death/passage to the afterlife are a direct reflection of the strength of cohesion of a society's social fabric.; 11/1/22, 9:08 AM
Lurker21 said...: Nothing like starting off the day with a reminder of our common mortality.

Whatever life brings us will be better.

Unless we're so depressed by the talk of corpses in the morning that we carry around our own cloud of misery for the rest of the day -- or week or month.; 11/1/22, 9:10 AM
Enigma said...: What an odd story.

I myself was looking forward to entire cities of Lenin-style preserved corpses under glass.

Let's not recycle dead bodies into the ecosystem through natural decay...reuse them? Maybe find a use for impossible to recycle plastic?

Greenpeace gives up on plastic recycling:

https://www.city-journal.org/greenpeace-admits-recycling-doesnt-work; 11/1/22, 9:12 AM
Big Mike said...: If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather live forever.; 11/1/22, 9:14 AM
Yancey Ward said...: What did they use on Joe Biden?; 11/1/22, 9:30 AM
Wince said...: Then how about freeze-drying your body and vibrating it into dust?

Otherwise known as the Mrs. Olson treatment.; 11/1/22, 9:35 AM
Joe Smith said...: Cemeteries are very popular.

People are dying to get in.

I'll be here all week...; 11/1/22, 9:37 AM
Achilles said...: It must be pointed out that the NYT's is constantly trying to destroy our social fabric at the behest of it's oligarch owner and that stories that "randomly" appear like this have a pointed goal.

Eliminating the patina and mystery of these rituals is not done casually.; 11/1/22, 9:43 AM
cassandra lite said...: My father died when I was two, and was buried in another city thousands of miles from where my mother raised me after his death. At 20, I visited his gravesite with its lovely and touching headstone, and wept the hardest I ever had for this man I had no memories of.

A few years ago my mother died. She and her husband (who'd died six years earlier) had made arrangements to be cremated...though they're Jewish. So my wife and I sucked it up and had her wishes carried out. Most of her ashes we spread on the ocean, her favorite place. I kept some and put them on a bookshelf in my office.

I would much, much, much rather have a gravesite to visit.; 11/1/22, 9:49 AM
whiskey said...: For Catholics, there is a doctrinal dimension to this.

"Can. 1176 §1. Deceased members of the Christian faithful must be given ecclesiastical funerals according to the norm of law.

§2. Ecclesiastical funerals, by which the Church seeks spiritual support for the deceased, honors their bodies, and at the same time brings the solace of hope to the living, must be celebrated according to the norm of the liturgical laws.

§3. The Church earnestly recommends that the pious custom of burying the bodies of the deceased be observed; nevertheless, the Church does not prohibit cremation unless it was chosen for reasons contrary to Christian doctrine."

https://www.vatican.va/archive/cod-iuris-canonici/eng/documents/cic_lib4-cann1166-1190_en.html#TITLE_III.; 11/1/22, 10:11 AM
TheOne Who Is Not Obeyed said...: I'm waiting for Musk to start offering the option of being shot into space, hopefully never to return.

Now that I think of it, putting bodies into a decaying near-earth orbit so they would eventually come back to earth as meteors sounds like a fun idea. It's like cremation but with a much bigger glow. And since it would be stupidly expensive (at least to start) it should appeal to many of our narcissistic oligarchs.; 11/1/22, 11:03 AM
Narr said...: Both of my dead brothers were cremated, and that's really my preference too.

The traditional American Way of Death is an instance of conspicuous consumption unto the grave. OTOH I have a strong suspicion that many of us will be disposed of in masse, quick and dirty, in the not very distant future.

Thanks to our best and brightest elites, of course.; 11/1/22, 11:49 AM
Kate said...: I wonder if Bixby meant to say that people go with what's traditional. However, burial and fire are traditional because they're normal.; 11/1/22, 12:34 PM
Joe Smith said...: 'Both of my dead brothers were cremated, and that's really my preference too.'

I should hope they were dead...; 11/1/22, 1:10 PM
Robert Cook said...: Both my parents were cremated. They died seven years apart, and their ashes are buried together in the same small hole dug beneath a tree outside the Episcopal church they attended (as did we three sons growing up). The church offers its parishioners who choose cremation to have their ashes buried in the lawn area on one side of the church. Bronze plaques bearing the birth and death dates, names, and short inscriptions about the deceased, provided by the survivors, are bolted to a marble plinth in the lawn area. We asked the priest--the same woman at the time of both my parents' demise--if our mother's ashes could be buried in the same place where our father's ashes had been buried years earlier. She was more than happy to accommodate us.

I will opt for cremation, as well. (It's far cheaper than traditional corpse in coffin in the ground.) I have no particular preference as to what happens to my ashes. That will be up to those who survive me.; 11/1/22, 1:14 PM
Doug said...: Kagen. "Wise Latina". Ketanji Brown.
There's a liberal brain trust for you. Repeal the Nineteenth.; 11/1/22, 3:00 PM
Narr said...: Joe noticed the awkward wording about my late brothers. I should have said that.

The older one's widow has also died, as near as I can tell from some free intertubing. Not sure what she did with his ashes, or what happened to her. My remaining brother has the other's; we have talked about spreading them discreetly at our parents' graves or down at the river, but currently they're just part of the mess at the old homestead.; 11/1/22, 3:32 PM