Archive: 12 June 2012

Our Glorious Dead

12 June 2012
Charles
3 Comments
Categories: music

Were you intrigued by the illustration on the previous post of the Grammofonus Orchestra? If you were, you might have done some googling. If you were too idle or too busy, we’d like to show you what you would have found.

We can’t find any information about Grammofonus except for a website here and some video clips which hardly anyone has ever bothered watching.

The website reveals the artist to be Stupor Schwärze, about whom we can discover nothing but what he tells us about himself. He’s a musician/performance artist. Anarchic. Arty.

Here at the GFG Funeralcare Tower™ we have fallen in love with Herr Schwärze. We’ve been listening to Our Glorious Dead all morning. One little intern loves Ave Porcus best, another Hitlerwetter. We all love Schlafe Ein. You can listen to the album here.

Quote of the day

12 June 2012
Charles
1 Comment
Categories: Quotes

“When a very loved friend dies they make a gift of their love of life to you in that it’s now your responsibility to love life as much as they did.”

Martin Amis on the death of his lifelong friend Christopher Hitchens

Sign of the times

12 June 2012
Charles
No comments
Categories: funeral music, music

“A survey last week listed the 50 indicators that you have become a fully fledged adult, which include being able to bleed a radiator, washing up immediately after eating, and carrying spare shopping bags “just in case”.

“I’ve already failed on quite a few – such as owning “best towels” and “filing post” – but in any case I’d like to substitute a handful of my own: buying a slow cooker; enjoying lunch alone in a restaurant rather than fretting that people will think you’re a “Billy-no-mates”; and, when you hear a much-loved song, briefly considering whether you might like it played at your funeral.”

Jenny McCartney here. 

Do women write better about death than men?

12 June 2012
Charles
5 Comments
Categories: celebrants

At the Telegraph Hay Festival last weekend, Martin Amis opined that women write better about sex than men. They do so, he said, with greater sincerity. Men get carried away showing off their writerly potency. 

This set me wondering whether female celebrants write better, more emotionally articulate funerals than men.

Amis went on to say: 

“Let me venture a distinction between men’s writing and women’s writing. There is a difference between real sincerity and literary sincerity. When you’re told about the death of a friend you can burst into tears but you can’t burst into song. But I would say there’s a bit more song in women’s writing, there’s more real sincerity in women’s writing.”

I suspect there’s something in this, and that it carries over into funeral scripts. The emotional temperature of a ceremony written by a man is likely to be cooler than one written by a woman, its content thinner.  

I suspect that the best male celebrants acknowledge the general superiority and greater emotional fluency of the sisterhood. 

On reflection, I acknowledge that this may not be a universally held view. 

 

The Good Funeral Guide
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