"He shaves Lady X in swift, efficient strokes, and there is something gentle about this, something almost ancient. Like the ritualistic washing of a body in some cultures. It looks tender, at least until Joe uses a small hose to aim a stream of water down Lady X’s face to remove the cream — that somehow reminds me of the rinse cycle in a carwash."
posted by maudlin on Jan 8, 2007 - 55 comments

Long ago in the town of Palermo in Sicily some monks got together and decided that they wanted to start praying to one of their own after he had passed to the Great Beyond so they embalmed him. Four hundred years and 8,000 corpses later you can see the Capuchin Catacombs for yourself.
posted by euphorb on Jul 11, 2004 - 18 comments

Research on civil war era embalming techniques up until the 1900's shows that arsenic, a primary component of embalming solutions, is leaching into our groundwater. Do you live near a cemetery?
posted by crawdad on Mar 25, 2004 - 9 comments