Hello Cruel World
Saturday, November 21, 2009
 
Burial & other body solutions

BTW, can anyone help, or point me towards help, with information on the usefulness of bodies with metastatic cancer for assorted organ transplants. Would cornea or skin be possible, if nothing else?
Alternatively, should I try contacting various medical schools or anatomy museums to find if they'd be interested in a massively-surgically-altered specimen as an example? Not sure about 'plastination'.

Would have for all these to make sure to, say, shave hair & take some nail clippings for modest burial. Wonder if anyone'd like to try some Victorian-style hair jewellery?

If it appears beforehand no-one wants body or its parts, I'm hoping for a "natural" style burial on a rural hillside I own. There's a polished stone & fossil necklace I also own called 'Drowned in Stone' that's already set aside to wear. We can tuck part of my partner's ashes in too.

(Cunning plan is for a comfy, back-supporting, scoop-seated stone bench on top (local stone is granite), so people can rest & admire the view, with bowl (have a glazed ceramic one might do) on shady side for animals (with climbing ridges for small ones that fall in — seen too many drowned) & water-draining seat, and inscription on back. (E. longiflora decoration wherever — ends?) Also hoping for carefully selected local small shade tree at right position for hottest times. Or *maybe* peppercorn, but needs more distance. For *real* fancy stuff, they could drag a lump of Pyrmont sandstone — there are some in my backyard, or use a rough chunk — up, flatten the top to a slight skillion (water-shedding) & prop it in a convenient spot nearby on the hillside for spreading a small picnic while you're sitting there. Can't work out a place for chunks of the fossil-rich mudstone found under the sandstone layer, it's too soft to leave exposed for more than a few years.

If the council isn't keen, well it'll all have to go up near the rocky summit, tucked into the dry? sclerophyll woodland. Should blend in well, esp. if they do the 'old paint the new stone with milky water' trick to get the granite scungied up.)

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[permalink][comment] - posted by Mez @ 11/21/2009 04:09:00 am
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
 
Fade away or gradually die …

Some more sad news Edward Woodward's BBC Obituary

I mentioned Breaker Morant just recently elsewhere. Callan seems to have branded itself into a generation, too. Glad now DVD releases are available. The Wicker Man has left quite an impact as well. Saw him only a couple of weeks ago, doing a good job in a recent Britcrime TV drama. Only one I can see in IMDB list is Jonnie Johnson in The Bill – which I virtually never watch, maybe it was spotting him sucked me in?

It sounds like a pretty good life overall: family together, not too much financial or physical struggle, doing good work in profession he enjoyed. Always sad to lose his like, tho'.

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[permalink][comment] - posted by Mez @ 11/18/2009 02:59:00 pm
Monday, August 03, 2009
 
A Birthday Sonnet (Even Keats made this thought seem a little whiny)

Sonnet
: "If I should die some night and never see
Dawn's light, my email, and my morning tea,
I face the thought with equanimity,
In fact, it would be worse for you than me.
Not that I want to die and turn to clay.
I'm only half-way through, I want to stay,
I want more years, more books, more chance to say
I love my life, my work, my friends, my day.
But I would know for sure the mystery
Perhaps go on to live again and grow
But even if there's nothing, I would know.
My death I view with calm philosophy
It's other people's death that makes me rage
Weep, grieve, and curse, demand another page."
Jo Walton (papersky: BlueJo)

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[permalink][comment] - posted by Mez @ 8/03/2009 02:02:00 am
Monday, May 25, 2009
 
Neil Gaiman's wedding poem

A Wedding Poem
This for you, for both of you,

a small poem of happiness
filled with small glories and little triumphs
a fragile, short cheerful song
filled with hope and all sorts of futures

Because at weddings we imagine the future
Because it's all about 'what happened next?'
all the work and negotiation and building and talk
that makes even the tiniest happily ever after
something to be proud of for a wee forever

This is a small thought for both of you
like a feather or a prayer,
a wish of trust and love and hope
and fine brave hearts and true.

Like a tower, or a house made all of bones and dreams
and tomorrows and tomorrows and tomorrows.

Neil Gaiman's Journal: post-wedding post, Saturday, 19th August, 2006

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[permalink][comment] - posted by Mez @ 5/25/2009 09:40:00 pm
Sunday, March 29, 2009
 
An Anniversary Villanelle

One Art
    The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
    so many things seem filled with the intent
    to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

    Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
    of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
    The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

    Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
    places, and names, and where it was you meant
    to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

    I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
    next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
    The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

    I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
    some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
    I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

    – Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
    I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
    the art of losing’s not too hard to master
    though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

                        — Elizabeth Bishop
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[permalink][comment] - posted by Mez @ 3/29/2009 02:38:00 am
Monday, October 06, 2008
 
Poem: Right there on edge on mountain lip see cloud

From Making Light's anecdotal thread, Pearls of great price, not to be devalued #268:
Right there on edge on mountain lip see cloud
swift move through sky, through steady clearest blue,
with every second become something new;
voices within declare you have been cowed
not knowing yet the force that is allowed
nor proper motion ready for its cue.
On neither side is the eternal view
but every sound right here is sharp and loud.
So you were eager then to find a space
just for yourself, and had so much to prove
and so much time; or so it was you thought
being a fool. Now there is little grace
for you to get into the rightful groove
and the robed judge has come into the court.
Fragano Ledgister October 05, 2008, 01:35 PM:
nielsenhayden.com/ makinglight/ archives/010613.html#298677

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[permalink][comment] - posted by Mez @ 10/06/2008 12:41:00 pm

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/ . Lives in Australia/New South Wales/Sydney, speaks English. Eye color is hazel. I am what my mother calls unique. My interests are photography, reading, natural history/land use, town planning, sustainability.

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Australia, New South Wales, Sydney, English, photography, reading, natural history, land use, town planning, sustainability.