I was moments away from responding to a recent comment that was made on a post by Rachel Claff:
Capsula Mundi. The commentator was intrigued by the possibility of a human (dead) body being planted as a bulb for a future tree. I must admit I am intrigued too, and may have to research to see if this approach has remained, or has
become a viable option. (Because as we will see later in this post, the reality of a usable process and the propagating of it as a good idea do not always mean the same thing.) I was going to make another comment about another biodegradable idea that was introduced many years ago involving turning the human body into compost (corpse to compost, cryomation) called
Promession, named by the swedish biologist who conceived the process, Susanne Wiigh Masak . I read about it in an entertaining book on death called
Stiff. I was going to suggest this as an alternative to being buried in fetal position in a bulb. (Sidenote: I admit to thinking about death more than the average person, but sadly I do not ever think of more pragmatic aspects of death, like what someone should do with my decomposing body once I die. Or, who will pay my half of the mortgage once I'm gone, or who will legally receive my dwindling musical royalties once I'm too dead to do anything with them.) Anyway, I wanted to check up on this Promession process before responding, and through some quick studying I realized the process has not yet been released to the public, which I thought was odd since many of the articles made it sound like it was a done deal. Articles written more than 12 years ago. Then I read this
statement by one of the franchises, Promessa UK, which states they are separating from the Mothership Promessa, I'm assuming due to lack of progress or perhaps a divergence in profit-making potentials. The site that hosts this statement has a fundamental problem with the process, it lacks "soul." But I am one of those that believes that the body is just a shell once dead. I have not settled on my beliefs about the soul itself, but if I were my soul I wouldn't hang out for too long in my post-flatulent decomposing host, where I'd have to share the diminishing space with millions of ravenous microorganisms. I'd like to read more recent articles about what is exactly going on with
cryomation, but I don't speak the language of the
Mothership Promessa. Obviously I have more studying to do before I die. I'll have to get on that... Oh look, Bunny!
It never seemed odd or mystical, revelational for some musicians to die at 27. I had always called the age 27, "The Age of disillusionment." The age where your childhood and your adulthood begin to mingle and clash. My friend Stephanie Shaw once said when I was 29 turning 30, "Thirty is the best age." It was a great age. Here are a couple sites I found today, one that rationalizes how an idea can be made popular with very little evidence behind it, once placed next to other "coincidental" ages of rock deaths. People just like the number 27. It's a 3 thing. But noone is going to talk about a musician dying at 3, 6, or 9. Here is also a picture of the newest 27 Club Amy Winehouse, whom I never heard of until she became part of this club that is about as illusional as my theory about the age of disillusionment. And here is a picture of Bob Welch, who now belongs to the Suicide Club and the 66 Club. Psychology Today. A list of other rock death ages. This is in response to John Szmanski & Peter Sebastian's post The 27 Club which now has 27,000 hits. Good Work! Also in the comments for that post there was also a reference to Saturn Returns, which is a more cosmic description of what I touch on briefly here.
