The Burns Archive is a collection of over 700,000 historical photographs that document
disturbing subject matter: obsolete medical practices and experiments, death, disease, disasters, crime, revolutions, riots and war. Newsweek posted a
select gallery this past October, as well as a
video interview and walk-through with curator and collector Dr. Stanley B. Burns, a New York opthalmologist.
(Via) (Content at links may be disturbing to some.) [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Apr 26, 2011 -
15 comments
When writer Robin Romm's mother was dying of cancer, she started keeping a journal--writing from the trenches. At the time she had no idea it would become a book.
The Mercy Papers (excerpt) is a gut-wrenching, painfully honest, and deeply moving account of her mother's last three weeks.
[more inside]
posted by liketitanic
on Mar 5, 2010 -
31 comments
Children Full of Life - grade 4 students in Kanazawa, Japan learn deep life lessons from their incredible teacher and from each other. I strongly recommend this as awesome, but one caveat: keep tissues handy. (5 parts, 40 minutes total, English)
posted by madamjujujive
on Jul 25, 2009 -
48 comments
"Then I started stripping and cleaning. I told myself it would help sell the flat. How could anyone think of buying it? But I also imagined that if I cleaned long enough and hard enough, the dull patina of dried blood that seemed to cling to every surface would finally go. I hoped that if I emptied the flat of its objects, and pared back its contents to nothing, I would uncover the place that I grew up in, before Ivor was the old man, before he was a legend. I couldn’t find that place, and I didn’t think I would find it in the boxes and among the papers either."
David Goldblatt traces his murdered father's life through unpaid bills and unopened letters.
posted by marmaduke_yaverland
on Jan 19, 2009 -
19 comments
OBITUARIES
Dunn, Nicholas Ryan. August 5, 2007.
"Yesterday my son took his own life. He did not intend to. He did something thousands of people have and are doing, using drugs. Drugs they know nothing about. Drugs recommended and provided by friends or strangers that are not chemists that know what's in them or doctors that knew how much his body could take. My son Nick has devastated us … We also all hurt for a
three year old little girl named Kylie Marie who will grow up without her father … Those drugs do not discriminate by race, income, the status of you or of your family. These are those who care about you and those who you care about. Consider them, please! The pleasure is not worth the risks! Goodbye Nick, we love you, and will miss you."
posted by pardonyou?
on Aug 13, 2007 -
119 comments
Memorial Day orators will say that a G.I.'s life is priceless. Don't believe it. I know what value the U.S. government assigns to a soldier's life: I've been handed the check. It's roughly what the Yankees will pay Roger Clemens per inning once he starts pitching next month.
posted by geos
on May 28, 2007 -
126 comments
Their task may be depressing, but the generosity of their work is inspiring and hopefully thereputic. The photographers who are working with
Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep provide their services on a volunteer basis to help families over come the grief of losing an infant.
If you're a professional photographer interested in being involved, they're seeking
volunteers.
posted by blaneyphoto
on Jun 7, 2006 -
24 comments
Sad -- such a sweet-looking kid, the smile on the face of a future suicide.
Sad -- "If she only knew then how things would turn out…"
Sad -- "I chose to kill her."
Sad -- "You could see her personality break through the coma." Life is
dukkha, said the Buddha -- a Pali term that means something like "suffering" or "the incapability of satisfaction." (Or as Mick Jagger put it, "I can't get no...")
Here's the tangible evidence.
posted by digaman
on May 3, 2006 -
39 comments
Kindertotenlieder. In 1833-34,
Frederich Rückert wrote 425 poems after two of his children died within 16 days of each other; seven decades later, Mahler set
five of them to
music.
Kindertotenlieder, or Songs on the Death of Children, has been
recorded by both
male and
female singers, in both orchestral and piano-vocal arrangements. The song cycle is a powerful meditation on grief and loss, which is somewhat surprising since we think of the 18th, 19th, and even early 20th centuries as being a time when people -- especially
young children -- lived
closer to death and had a different relationship with
grief than we do today. Mahler, who was one of 14 children, eight of whom died in infancy and one of whom died at 12, had much personal experience to bring to the
Kindertotenlieder; indeed, just three years after the song cycle's completion,
his own daughter died of scarlet fever. But some musicians dismiss the idea that the music is premonitory, or
indicative of Mahler's personal tragedy, and posit instead that Mahler's intent was not to showcase his own grief but capture the intensity of Rückert's first-person text. Modern works on the topic of Kindertoten range from
mixed media and text to
dance to
film, and even to
modern stage works. And there is, of course,
music -- the most famous contemporary work in this tradition might just be the Grammy-award winning song inspired by
real-life tragedy,
Eric Clapton's
Tears in Heaven.
posted by mothershock
on Apr 3, 2006 -
23 comments
Good journey, Joop. "Joop was our handsome goodhearted 'boerenfox' (farmer's fox terrier). For three good years, he lived with us in the small town of Paterswolde, The Netherlands.
We found Joop in 2002 in
an animal shelter in Zuidwolde. Joop was a canine supermodel."
The
Dog Log shows
Joop's life in pictures and his human's in words. Joop passed away August 8, 2005 from cancer and has quite a following on
Flickr.com. Being the owner of a 14-year-old dog, the display of support really touched me and the photos are beautiful.
posted by VelvetHellvis
on Aug 9, 2005 -
10 comments
"Things just happen, he had decided; they happen and they happen again, and anybody who tries to make sense out of it goes out of his mind."
For this reason, Tom Rath, the hero of Sloan Wilson's 1955 novel
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, decides not to "make sense" of the the atrocities to which he bears witness during World War II. Instead, he accepts that war is in itself irrational, and that he must simply forget its horrors before returning to civilian life.
This New Yorker article contrasts Wilson's 1950's stoicism with today's veneration of the grieving process and suggests that this change in attitude has led us to vastly underestimate our own capacity for coping with trauma. The author also draws some interesting parallels with
a controversial study in which victims of childhood sexual abuse were found to be no more likely than others to suffer from mental health problems as adults. Intriguing stuff, to say the least, and as I read it, I can't help but think of Johnny Cash's
"The Man Who Couldn't Cry"(Note: Having thankfully never been subjected to war or sexual abuse myself, I am in no way attempting to demean the anguish of those who have. Rather, I'm more interested in the idea that people are stronger than they give themselves credit for, and how different upbringings affect our experience of trauma.)
posted by idontlikewords
on Dec 28, 2004 -
41 comments
Seven Deadly Sentiments - Psychology Today explores seven "guilt-provoking, squirm-inducing, I'm-such-a-lousy-person thoughts... At worst, they remind us that we're not quite as nice as we'd like to believe we are. And at best, they may be able to help us understand the deeper reasons behind our wicked thoughts--and forgive ourselves our own trespasses." A long, but interesting read.
posted by Irontom
on Jan 12, 2004 -
10 comments
Ways to heal. I'm a long, long way from being OK, as are most others here in NYC, many of whom have lost far more than me. The one thing that has helped more than anything has been the people who have crawled out of the woodwork of my life. From the friends currently housing me, to a phone call from an expat friend living in China, to hearing an ex-girlfriend say "I love you," a month after it hit me that we would probably never speak again.
As a distraction, how about you? Who have you heard from that you never thought you'd see again? Old lovers? Former best friends? Long-lost cousins?
posted by Sinner
on Sep 12, 2001 -
3 comments
