Cadaver

When I was in the 9^th grade, I went through an awkward Goth phase. As an awkward 14 year old, I hated the world. Most of my time was spent in the library reading about death and my eventual vampire afterlife, where I found a work by Jessica Mitford titled The American Way of Death.   The essay that you are about to read is an excerpt from that work titled “Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain,” which does a great job of telling you, the reader, what goes on behind the scenes of an American funeral.

In the very first paragraph, Jessica shows off her excellent style of cynicism and satire. “…Whisked off into a funeral parlor, where he is sprayed, sliced, pierced, pickled, trussed, trimmed, creamed, waxed, painted, rouged and neatly dressed;  transformed from a common corpse into a Beautiful Memory Picture.” This is a perfect summarization of both Jessica’s style of writing and of the passage as a whole.  The work covers the strange and uniquely American practice of embalming. After all, what other country proudly (well, perhaps not...) sends their dead to a salon before putting them in the ground or oven, to be forever buried or incinerated. A queer process, to be sure, and one a large majority of people rarely give any thought to.

When I was about nine years old, or six, or something, my great grandfather died. He was roughly 93 years old, a pretty ripe age. I barely knew the man. Needless to say, I was bored at my first (and his first) funeral. I let go of my mother’s hand, as children tend to do, and wandered over to the casket during visitations. There in the box was a weird, waxy figure. He had rosy pink cheeks, a nice suit, and was smiling with his eyes closed. How peculiar.  It definitely wasn’t my great-grandfather- that I was sure of.  Naturally, being the curious child that I was, I decided to investigate this. I reached down to touch his hands and fingers and started moving them around. They certainly didn’t feel like skin, so it wasn’t as creepy to play with a dead body as it probably should have been.  Thanks to Jessica Mitford, now I know why.

This excerpt does an excellent job of summarizing exactly why corpses undergo the things they do, and the results of the process.  As I read, I became more educated about embalming techniques and the people that perform them.  Did you know that when someone dies, the deceased of the family is almost never asked if they would like their dead relative embalmed? It’s just assumed, and even considered rude to ask such a thing. Another thing I found interesting; the embalmers toolbox. Within that box, he/she has the tools to reconstruct limbs, make the skin that was yellow from jaundice white once more, even reconstruct entire skulls should the head be unable to be recovered in the most grisly of accidents. It is, simply put, fascinating- a word which I use here to mean both extremely interesting and also extremely bizarre.

Jessica doesn’t miss a beat. She goes on to inform you, the reader, of why this is done. How and who does the actual embalming. She even includes interviews with workers in American funeral homes, directors and embalmers themselves. In short- you must read this! Jessica Mitford does an excellent job of educating while entertaining her reader- from the viewpoint of an outsider. She manages to stand out but feel familiar, making this a really excellent piece of work.

Belated introductions.

Hi. My name is Spenser. I was born under the Chinese sign of the horse. On the placemats at the take out joint behind Publix, it tells me that "Popular and Attractive to the Opposite Sex, the horse is ostentatious and often impatient. Marry a Tiger or a Dog early, but never a rat." I don't know if I am entirely sure what that means.

      Now, dear reader, now that I have captured the mind and entertained the heart, I suppose that I could open up a bit more than just relaying knowledge I learned while in search of nourishment. My principle interests include mind altering hallucinogenics. In the words of Hunter S Thompson(as portrayed by Johnny Depp in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) "There is nothing more depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge." Shame really, for your humble narrator (myself and yours truly) is neither a man nor under the influence of Ether. According to protocol, the enrichment center can no longer deceive the reader with outright fabrications. Please proceed to the next testing chamber for further analysis.

      Don't you want to know what it would be like to look the way you feel? I feel like an acid junkie, college flunkie, lovey dovey ghetto princess. My hobbies and interests include staying, going, sleeping and baking. (The last of which contains more than first assumed, presumed, consumed.) I consider myself to be very proficient in the art of Turducken, a whole stuffed camel. Traditional wedding dishes.

Medieval times changed my life. Not the restaurant, the year 1000.  Many millennia have gone by since sealing the brick inside the mouth of the cadaver, to prevent vampires from returning to life to feed.

I have three friends. Two cats. I left my heart in Portland. Or did I? I can't very well conceive a person continuing to survive without proper circulation of blood in the arteries.

      I wonder. I hate old people. I get behind them in traffic and beat my head on the horn and cry. I saw the Smokey The Bear turning 65 commercial, and I thought the candles of the elderly were getting snuffed out at 65. Hopes, dreams.

     Today as I rose from a deep slumber at 5pm, I found I didn't really rise at all. Can you truly rise if you sleep standing up? The word rising implies that one is in a higher position than previous, however, my state did not change. Lots of things are constant. Have you happened to notice how old the rocks are?

     Certainly there is to be a continuation of life beyond 2012. The Mayans just got lazy on the calendar after so long. Can you really place blame on them? Calendar writing is bound to be dreadfully painfully boring, regardless of how much you stare at the stars.

     Long story short: I have no idea what to do with my life; everything good is too fucking expensive anyway. Shit bro.

I bring to you an epic tale of Girl VS Wild.

Tonight, as I lay in slumber (watching Daisy of Love actually) I heard a noise.
A badger had penetrated the walls of my stronghold.
I couldn't lay about idly as the unwanted guest ransacked my possessions- I had to act, and act now.
I lept out of my bed and grabbed a weapon. (I have a cane I bought at a flea market that I use to switch the light off when I don't want to get up)
I was to fight this badger.
I cornered him, up in arms. He has nowhere to go.
I need back up.
Desperately, I search around.
AH-HA! A comrade! My Loyal SaberCat Companion, Fifi.
I hoist her massive girth into the air using all the strength I can muster, and I hurl her at the offending badger.
To no avail. She looks at him curiously and falls asleep promptly. Useless.
I need another plan.
With the speed of a gazelle, I run to the kitchen. I need a tool. Peering, searching, I find a bowl. This will do nicely to capture (and then torture) the badger. I grab my sharpie and write "Guantanamo Bowl" on my bowl. I am in charge.
Racing back to my bedroom, I sneak up on to the cornered beast. My bowl is at the ready- my muscles are taut- ready to pounce. I AM A GOD!
I begin speaking kindly to the badger- but not too kindly. It will grow suspicious. I raise my bowl into the air, slamming it down onto the badger.
CAUGHT. He is now my prisoner. I slam the lid onto the bowl, ensuring that he cannot break free.
CRISIS AVERTED.
tl;dr? I caught a mouse in a bowl and turned him loose in the woods. Poor little guy.

Misanthrope: a definitive essay.

Everyone has “off” days, days where a person just wants to lay in his or her bed with the covers pulled up to hide from the world. Everyone has had a day when he or she just doesn’t want to deal with people. The reasons for the lack of interaction can be many and varied. Once such is the oft-peculiar reason of just plain not liking other people. There can be a myriad of reasons why a person may not like and feel comfortable with others or they may feel quite at ease with the world and just not trust their fellow man. Of course, distrust and dislike can manifest themselves in many different ways. People are victims of consciousness, that is, they can make decisions and influence their own choices. A misanthrope is a person who doesn’t like dealing with others; a misanthrope distrusts, fears, and oftentimes resents others and their actions.

                Distrust of humanity and those other than oneself can result from many different things. Abuse as a child (leading to hatred of those who harm instead of protect), being forced against your will into an unpleasant and arduous task (such as going to war), or being taken captive by the KGB for disagreeing with Lenin, father of Great Mother Russia. Sometimes, a person can be a misanthrope without having suffered at the hands of their fellow man. Many people distrust other human beings without suffering- they merely witness and observe actions executed by others and see the horrors that result. These people watch the news, read the paper, use the internet. Global communication provides many more reasons for distrusting humanity. Previously unaffected people now witness the abused children, abandoned and raised by wolves; one sees soldiers dying in wars they don’t agree with. Humans witness other humans being killed by still more humans (just for having an illegal telephone) in a Utopia gone awry. These causes are more than enough for anyone to distrust.

Fear and distrust can go hand in hand, or they can be two quite different beasts. You can have a fear of flying without distrusting the pilot or the airplane, or you can fear that the pilot may not be the type of person that you want your life in the hands of. One can distrust his government without fear of being enslaved, or that may be the exact fear one does have. Many fears of humanity are quite valid- fear of fellow humans can help, rather than harm. Fear is a primary motivating factor in many of life’s decisions, fearing consequences dealt by fellow men. For example, someone may really want to try marijuana, but they fear the consequences of doing what has been deemed an illegal action. What gives governments and nations the right to forbid and control what goes into the body of another person, just like the humans that make up said government? What gives any person the right to punish another human for something that causes no harm to themselves or anyone else? What makes a person have authority over another free human being? It is the element of fear. A human won’t do something that one fears will end up bringing harm down upon ones shoulders.  Fear can cause someone to shy away from humanity, whether they go to a secluded cave in the mountains or a volcano fortress on an island in the south Pacific, or into the inner workings of one’s own mind, becoming withdrawn, introverted, and alone with one’s thoughts.

Misanthropy can also be looked upon as resentment or a feeling that mankind owes you something, mankind could have acted differently in certain situations or that the rest of humanity isn’t up to the standards one feels it should be. Resentment towards others can be as simple as jealousy or annoyance, or it can be a form of silent protest, or revenge. “We lose sight of our brothers and sisters in humanity and that loss of human intimacy is what breeds hatred.” Andy Barlow tells us why one may feel negatively towards others; they’ve simply lost the pleasant feelings associated with other humans, like love, friendship, respect, and acceptance. Lack of these simple pleasures can and often does lead to misanthropic tendencies.

Misanthropes are often misunderstood or viewed as “bad” people. No people are good or bad, and it is unfair to paint everyone with the same brush. Does one ever stop to consider the reason why misanthropy is constantly being labeled with such negative terms? No one likes being crammed into a niche against their will and such categorizing can surely lead to resenting others. However, those accused of such social distortions such as misanthropy are often very kind, albeit skeptical, smart and sensitive people; the most anti-social among us are quite capable of reforming, given proper reason. Anti-social, misanthropic types often are such because they view it as a way to deal with injustices they may have witnessed or experienced. After all, there is certainly no better way to punish humanity for something humanity isn’t aware of doing than to remove oneself from them. Many people feel shorted by their lot in life, be it a perceived lack of goods, money, respect or otherwise. This alone does not make one a misanthrope, however. Surely many people feel cheated out of something; misanthropes lament supposed losses to the point of resentment.

Surprisingly enough, more people are guilty misanthropic tendencies than we (mankind as a whole) often realize. Most people can remember being on a train in the city and laying eyes on someone looking away and not making eye contact with another living person for the rest of the journey. They were probably regarded with suspicion, with someone wondering “what their deal was.”  Truthfully, it was probably nothing. The quiet person on the light-rail across the city probably just didn’t like being crammed into a can of strangers going 60 miles an hour.  A misanthrope is one who generally resents, hates, fears or distrusts humanity or mankind as a whole. Misanthropes also have the ability to do good deeds and trust others, though not everyone. Just because one doesn’t agree with the practices of the rest of the human race doesn’t mean that they are incapable of helping their fellow humans in times of need. A misanthrope is not the quiet person playing GTA: Chinatown Wars on the train in the morning; a misanthrope is not someone who’d rather read a book than go to a club. A misanthrope is someone with valid fears and thoughts and opinions about their fellow man, all of which are worthy of respect.