The Family Plot Blog
Woody Allen on Life, Death and Advance Directives
Filmmaker, actor, writer and comedian Woody Allen wrote a brilliant opinion piece in Sunday's New York Times: Hypochondria - An Inside Look. His essay provides a great conversation starter on advance directives and end-of-life issues. Allen insists he's not a hypochondriac but an alarmist. He doesn't experience imaginary maladies — his maladies are real. He explains: What distinguishes my hysteria is that at the appearance of the mildest...
Friday Funeral Film: Get Low
"The Real Story Behind the Movie Get Low" is one of the most-visited posts here at The Family Plot Blog. While the true story is fascinating, as today's Friday Funeral Film, Get Low offers vital lessons on funeral planning BEFORE there's a death in the family. The basic story: Felix Bush (Robert Duvall) is a Tennessee hermit with no regard for anybody in the nearby town. No one in town wants to get to know him. They are scared by his gruff...
Announcing A Good Goodbye TV
Funeral Planning TV Shows Talking About Funerals "Won’t Make You Dead" Albuquerque, NM (January 9, 2013) -- Funeral planning television is coming to a screen near you. A Good Goodbye TV, an educational and entertaining 12-episode series of 30-minute programs, will present expert interviews on "everything you need to know before you go." Host Gail Rubin brings a light touch to a serious subject. Like her award-winning book, A Good Goodbye:...
Best Funeral Ever Compared to Undertaking Betty
Last night, the cable channel TLC debuted a pilot reality TV series "Best Funeral Ever." It focused on the Golden Gate Funeral Home in Dallas, TX. The African-American funeral home provides over-the-top celebratory "home-going" funerals. The personalized funerals shown in the movie Undertaking Betty (see previous blog post) pale in comparison. "A home-going is much different than a funeral. A home-going is a celebration," explained one of the...
Friday Funeral Films: Undertaking Betty
By Gail Rubin, The Doyenne of Death® Undertaking Betty provides a comedic romp behind-the-scenes at two funeral homes in the small village of Wrottin-Powys in Wales. This funeral film offers a fun way to start funeral planning conversations by showing both traditional and highly outrageous personalized send-offs. Betty Rhys-Jones (Brenda Blethyn) is not happy with her life. Her husband is cheating on her with his secretary and Betty must tend...
Comedic Funeral Home Commercials
It takes a forward-thinking funeral home to use comedy in their commercials. Kudos to Schmidt & Bartelt Funeral & Cremation Services! Enjoy these two 30-second commercials, "Bucket List" and "Bugler." http://youtu.be/nKa7_9hp2To You didn't talk about death, you didn't preplan. How times have changed! http://youtu.be/zKji3Lgcnbk Don't spend your money on bugling lessons!
When to Delete Deceased from Your Address Book?
They don't call, they don't write. They're our deceased family and friends whose contact information lives on in our address books. Why do we keep them there? There's a great essay, "Why I keep the Dearly Departed in My Address Book," by Edward Zuckerman in a recent New York Times Magazine on the topic. Read it and enjoy. Some thoughts to ponder: Your own email and online accounts - What happens to them when you die? Do we remember earlier...
On Saying Goodbye
How do we find the words to say a good goodbye? At the tenuous end-of-life time, what do we say to the dying when we don't ever exactly know the precise moment when someone will die? What do the dying say to us - or not? A column by Bruce Feiler in the New York Times explores these questions. His column Exit Lines looks at what people say, or don't say, leading up to death in real life versus what gets said in the movies. He gives examples of...
Friday Funeral Films: The Big Lebowski
By Gail Rubin, The Doyenne of Death® As a Friday Funeral Film, The Big Lebowski offers several good cremation lessons. The cult classic comedy focuses on bowling, White Russians, and life in Southern California, but it also offers some funeral planning tips. This 1998 movie written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen is a story about Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski (Jeff Bridges), an unemployed hippie who runs into all sorts of trouble when he’s...
Wanna Buy Casket Accessories?
Ever get emails from China enticing you to buy something? Here's a really non-enticing note I just received. I don't make or sell caskets. Not interested in buying, but it's something to mock! Spelling errors and typos are intact. Dear Gail Rubin, We get your email address from the Internet and learn that you may be interested in casket accessories. We specilized in manufacture of casket accessories for nearly 10 years. We get a competitive...
Thwarting Cemetery Thefts with Creativity
In a recent Dear Abby column, readers provided creative suggestions on how to prevent the theft of floral tributes, flags and other meaningful items left in cemeteries and placed on graves. Here are several letters from readers with their tips. Good suggestions here! DEAR ABBY: May I comment on the letter from "Itching to Get Even in Cincinnati" (Oct. 1), the woman who was upset that the handmade wreaths she had placed on her family graves had...
Christmas in the Cemetery
Last night, on the way back from enjoying the luminarias in Albuquerque's Country Club district, we stopped by the Catholic cemetery just off of Edith Blvd. Just as last year, the place was mobbed with visitors. Festive decorations, lights and luminarias showed that families did not forget their dead on this special night. Entire families came out, bringing even their youngest children, to show we remember our loved ones. Death is not to be...
Friday Funeral Films: My Mexican Shivah
My Mexican Shivah is a very funny comedy funeral film that illustrates highly traditional shivah Jewish funeral traditions in an entertaining manner.
Great Video on Talking to Kids about Death
I admire Caitlin Doughty, licensed mortician and founder of the Order of the Good Death. With sly humor and good advice, she, like me, seeks to help start funeral planning conversations. This new video on her Youtube channel demonstrates how adults can talk to their children about death. "As adults, we've gotten very good at denying death, at figuring out how to push it way back into the back corners of our minds," Doughty said. "But a child...
NPR Story on Self-Publishing
There was a great story on NPR this morning about self-publishing and how the book publishing industry is starting to get involved. Self-Publishing: No Longer Just A Vanity Project profiles some folks who took a chance on themselves and the gamble paid off big time. In an ironic twist, now Simon & Schuster is getting into the self-publishing arena. The story starts out: "They used to call it the "vanity press," and the phrase itself spoke...
After CT Shootings: Support and TV Backlash
As our nation stumbles to get a grip around the Sandy Hook Elementary shootings, we begin to see the importance of the funeral director in our society. The Connecticut Funeral Directors Association (CFDA) and the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) report being swamped with offers of help. CFDA has received numerous offers of assistance and support from funeral directors and embalmers. Calls and emails have come in from throughout...
How to Explain Death to Children
Last night on NPR's All Things Considered, they ran a story that started with an audio clip of Mr. Rogers explaining death in his usual gentle way. He dealt with the challenge by talking about a much-loved dog named Mitzi that he had as a child. "I was very sad when she died, because she and I were good pals," he said. Then he sang about being sad and glad. LeVar Burton, the executive producer and host of Reading Rainbow, was profoundly...
Friday Funeral Films: The Loved One
By Gail Rubin, The Doyenne of Death® The Loved One debuted in 1965, two years after Jessica Mitford’s exposé book The American Way of Death rocked the funeral industry. Despite its black-and-white vintage, The Loved One satirizes the funeral business, including pet funerals, as well as the movie industry and the military-industrial complex. It shows funeral trends that have continued to this day. http://youtu.be/62FuWtAvNpo Critics at the time...
Rock and Roll in the CataCoffin!
For those who must have their rock and roll music in the afterlife, or want some good tunes if they're buried alive, consider the CataCoffin. All rock stars will want to know about this casket's musical options for their postmortem existence. CataCoffin, the brainchild of a Swedish company known as Pause, offers a CataCombo Sound System with a custom-built amplifier and a pair of 2-way speakers, tweeters and an 8-inch sub-woofer specially tuned...
Oh, The Humanity!
A friend sent me a link to an Atlantic article about the 75th anniversary of the Hindenburg disaster. It included many previously unseen photos of the great airship, like the one below. On May 6, 1937, the massive German airship caught fire while attempting to land near Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing 35 people aboard, plus one ground crew member. Of the 97 passengers and crew members on board, 62 managed to survive. The horrifying incident was...
PBS Rebroadcasts The Undertaking
Tomorrow night, PBS stations will re-air the Frontline documentary, The Undertaking, which takes viewers behind the scenes and into the lives of real life funeral directors (check your local listings for times and channels). The Undertaking focuses on Lynch & Sons Funeral Homes in Clawson and Milford, Michigan. The documentary paints a powerful portrayal of the deep and profound commitment funeral service has for the families it serves....