regulated hatred

[fictional]

I can only imagine what Miss Austen would have to say about this.*

What things will people do in our name after we're dead? And what will we think of them?

*Thanks to magnetgirl for the link.

Comments

[stealingpennies.livejournal.com]

That is strangely...unsettling, though I suppose it comes under the heading of 'pleases the person and harms no one'. There's been a recent headline in the UK about a concert pianist who bequiethed his skull to the RSC and is currently on stage (so to speak) as part of David Tennant's Hamlet. Also in the too strange to make it up category, is the turning human ashes into diamonds so you can literally wear your loved one.
I think Miss Austen may have been blackly amused and a little sarcastic.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

There's been a recent headline in the UK about a concert pianist who bequiethed his skull to the RSC and is currently on stage (so to speak) as part of David Tennant's Hamlet.

Uh, wow. Alas poor Yorick indeed. That is... wow. My mind sort of boggles. Although speaking of David Tennant, would that I were a glove upon that hand to touch that cheek etc etc. Not sure about being a skull though. My fangirl-ery has limits, though I might not have known them until this point!

Yeah, the diamond thing... I've heard of this. I cannot imagine wearing such a piece or being worn, though I suspect I'd care less about the latter.

I think Miss Austen may have been blackly amused and a little sarcastic.

And I wish I could hear her animadvert on the subject for that very reason. I think it would be grand.

[stealingpennies.livejournal.com]

Although speaking of David Tennant, would that I were a glove upon that hand to touch that cheek etc etc. Not sure about being a skull though. My fangirl-ery has limits, though I might not have known them until this point!

Yers. I think I would want to be conscious and have a few more body parts attached for the proposed David Tennant meeting!

[psykaos42.livejournal.com]

I find the whole idea a bit unsettling and somewhat creepy. Though I'm a fine one to talk, since after my sister died and willed her body to our local University Hospital, I'm the one who agreed to take her ashes once they were done (my stepmother was horrified and claimed she wouldn't have such a thing in her house), and I will admit to talking to the container they were in when I was feeling particularly lonely.

Nonetheless, her ashes was eventually buried on my mom's side of the joint plot my parents had during a small private ceremony. She was fond of a good many authors, but it would've never occurred to me to go scattering her ashes around their houses. It makes it easier to explain to people where she is, as 'Her ashes are buried on my parents graves' sounds a whole lot better than 'Oh, we scattered them in Jane Austin's garden.'

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Oh, I don't think there's anything at all odd about speaking to the dead. I just think that, while I am indeed all about the fannish experience, I think it should probably end on this side of death, if only because I think what happens to your remains should be about comforting the living. Maybe if they were the fans...

[psykaos42.livejournal.com]

My dad, who was a minister for close to 60 years before his own death, always said that funerals were held for the living to allow them to come to grips with their loss. The dead, being dead, likely don't care what you do with their remains, since they won't be needing them any more.

I will, however, say that my sister's ashes had magical properties as far as my stepmother was concerned-she refused to set food inside my house while they were here. I considered this to be an ideal situation and likely would've kept them around forever, if not for the fact I'd promised my sister that I'd bury her cremains on mom's grave.

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

Many baseball fans have had their ashes scattered at Yankee Stadium in New York (secretly, because it isn't allowed). Now the stadium is being torn down, and a new one built across the street. The ashes of course are left behind.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

That is, wow. I don't even know what to say to that.

There's a song or a poem or something in there somewhere, but I don't know where.