HW 53 - Independent Research A

Article 1: Daily Life in the Business of Death

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/daily-life-in-the-business-of-death/?ref=deathanddying

Scott Palmer was raised around death, this caused him to not be afraid or intimidated by dead bodies. He used this numbness of the topic to create a photo essay in which he uses many pictures of dead bodies, embalming/cremation tools and grief photos.

 

Article 2: Dance, Laugh, Drink. Save the Date: It’s a Ghanaian Funeral

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/12/nyregion/12funerals.html?pagewanted=2&ref=deathanddying

Ghanaians throw funerals like the rest of nyc throws 21^st birthday parties at nightclubs. Loud music, food, friends and alcohol are plentiful at these festive memorial services, which are spoken about as if the hottest DJ in the country was showing up. Entrance donations which are encouraged but not mandatory help cover expenses and send the body back to Africa. Religious blessings, ceremonies and speeches in English and Twi, a Ghanaian language all occur before the loud bass fills the party space.

Analytical paragraph:

Although Scott Palmer has developed an unusually encounter with the dead I don’t think that means he has learned or has been directly confronted with grief. People in the mainstream funeral business don’t experience grief; in fact they train themselves not to get close to their customers. I think many have this false sense of knowledge and experience with loss and grieving. It is unclear if the Ghanaian parties encourage feeling loss or experiencing sadness but they definitely include self expression towards the death, which Scott Palmers experience appears to lack. I think both are just ways with copping with grief, whether either one scrapes up on confronting it is another story.

Interview someone in the death care industry:

To my disappointment after calling 5 funeral homes, around school and the lower east side no one was willing to talk to me for more than 2 minutes. So now I’m left with a white piece of copy paper with four succinct questions spread down the page and empty gaps in between. Maybe the places had something to hide or maybe they didn’t want to deal with someone who wouldn’t be a possible client. It didn’t even occur to me at the time I was making the phone calls to pretend to have a dead relative in order to gain information, and in hindsight I don’t think deception would have been a suitable method for me to get the information  I was hoping for. I think formal social skills are important to learn and completing this assignment with answers to my interview questions would have strengthened mine. But from my perspective the blank printer paper very well shows the secrecy of the funeral business, as well as the results of sending the dead off to be cared for by strangers, there is a sincere lack of understanding.