Lets Die Together

The Death of Ivan Ilyich

2012-01-25T03:10:00.000-08:00

Opisthotonus by Charles Bell

"From that moment the screaming began that continued for three days, and was so terrible that one could not hear it through two closed doors without horror. At the moment he answered his wife realized that he was lost, that there was no return, that the end had come, the very end, and his doubts were still unsolved and remained doubts.

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" he cried in various intonations. He had begun by screaming "I won't!" and continued screaming on the letter "O".

For three whole days, during which time did not exist for him, he struggled in that black sack into which he was being thrust by an invisible, resistless force. He struggled as a man condemned to death struggles in the hands of the executioner, knowing that he cannot save himself. And every moment he felt that despite all his efforts he was drawing nearer and nearer to what terrified him. he felt that his agony was due to his being thrust into that black hole and still more to his not being able to get right into it. He was hindered from getting into it by his conviction that his life had been a good one. That very justification of his life held him fast and prevented his moving forward, and it caused him most torment of all."

From 'The Death of Ivan Ilyich

By Leo Tolstoy

DIGNITAS

2012-01-23T02:20:00.000-08:00

Files at the Dignitas offices in Zurich, where more than 150 Britons have ended their lives. Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian

I never knew there was so much tea involved in death. "Would you like a cup of tea?" Peter Smedley asks Sir Terry Pratchett, before they settle down to talk about dying.

In Terry Pratchett: Choosing To Die, He explores the realities of medically assisted death. Having been diagnosed with a rare form of early onset Alzheimer's disease in 2008, Terry considers how he might choose to end his life as his condition progresses. In a moving documentary he meets those who, like him, would like to control the way they die including a men suffering from degenerative conditions and he is with a British motor neurone sufferer as he carries out an assisted death at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland.

Dying Together. The Euthanasia of Sir Edward and Lady Downes

"The son of one of Britain’s most respected musicians told yesterday how he wept as he watched his father and mother die hand in hand at the Dignitas suicide clinic in Zurich. Distinguished orchestral conductor Sir Edward Downes, 85, and his 74-year-old wife Joan died from barbiturate poisoning as their children sat with them. Lady Downes had terminal cancer of the liver and pancreas while her husband was nearly blind and increasingly deaf.

Their son Caractacus, 41, said: ‘They drank a small quantity of clear liquid and then lay down on the beds next to each other. ‘They wanted to be next to each other when they died. They held hands across the beds. Within a couple of minutes they were asleep and they died within ten minutes."

A building used by Dignitas for assisted suicides.

"The Dignitas experience: 'It was all a bit scruffy, but it didn't seem to matter" John Larrett

"We went off to the famous flat in Zurich, which was an ordinary modern block. It was a very nondescript looking place. Some chap who worked for Dignitas introduced himself. They're continually asking the whole time if you want to go through with it, saying it's fine if you want to pull out, even right to the end, when they're mixing up the poison. But no, she was absolutely determined to do it. It wasn't soft lights and soft music, it was all a bit scruffy in a way, but it didn't seem to matter. I can't remember quite what we said to each other in those last minutes, something like, 'Good luck, have a good trip', or, 'Thank you for the happy times we've had'.

The man mixed up this potion. It was quite quick actually. She had this straw and she really sucked it down in a big way. She didn't sip, she really went for it. Within about a minute and a half she was shaking a bit on the bed and I was holding on to her, and then eventually, bang, that was it. I was left sitting there with Diana's dead body for about 20 minutes. It was a bit peculiar. I thought: 'Well, this is it.'

Then we flew back. The flight home was rather odd. I didn't feel bad about it – I felt glad it had happened but pretty empty, really. I was thinking, 'Oh God, and now I've got to carry on with things on my own', which I hadn't really thought about before. We'd left at about nine in the morning and got back about 10 at night. It all happened in one day. Her cousin dropped me off – I remember he had this Jag – and there I was on my own. That was it, finished. I do think about it occasionally. I miss not having Diana around, it's been quite lonely.

But I don't have any regrets about what she decided to do, absolutely no doubt about it at all. I'm delighted that Debbie Purdy won on Thursday. Anything that means that the law can be altered so people with horrible, incurable diseases can end their lives if they choose to is excellent.

guardian.co.uk, Friday 31 July 2009

Bournemouth Benches

2012-01-21T08:26:00.000-08:00

During a walk on boxing day i saw these blue benches. They had been freshly painted.

Macbeth

2011-12-01T13:54:00.001-08:00

Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more; it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Discuss

Dancer

2011-11-02T15:53:00.000-07:00

Sequence 1

“Don’t look back, keep running”

2011-10-31T06:59:00.000-07:00

Remembering death as i was growing up.

This is a selection of videos and images which I remember and how shaped my ideas, made me afraid and inquisitive about death as a child.

There was a school safety video that has stuck in my memory for being particularly scary. It was one about the railway where the kids football boots get caught on the line as hes crossing the tracks, he gets stuck as a train is coming and his legs get cut off. His sister watches the whole thing, screams and then she doesn't speak again. I was always really affected by the fact that she was so scared that she never spoke again. I've been trying to find this one for you but no luck here are some other equally chilling ones. Enjoy!

Dark and Lonely Water

Aids Monolith 1987

The Smoker of the future

Stay out of the Fridge!

Electricity

ET.

I found ET's death memorable because it is actually a story of resurrection as he comes back to life. E.T’s health begins to decline, and while Michael and Elliot go out for Halloween with E.T. The next morning Michael finds E.T dying in the forest, and when he takes him to Elliott realizes that he is also dying. Mary, Elliott’s mother, becomes frightened when she discovers her son’s illness and the dying alien, before government agents invade the house. Scientists set up a medical facility in the house, quarantining Elliott and E.T. Their link disappears, and E.T. then appears to die while Elliott recovers. A grief-stricken Elliott is left alone with the motionless alien.

This death is ingrained into the memory of all who watch it the film because the child with his childlike innocence and joys must face the grim realities of death through his friend. As he holds the lifeless corpse of his friend in his arms, we all feel the sadness and loss with him.

The death of Artex. The Neverending Story

I always remember the death of Artex as a really sad moment of my childhood. It didn't matter how many times i watched it, i always cried. It place in the deadly Swamps of Sadness, that Artreyu must pass in order to see the ancient Morla, the wisest being in all of Fantasia. Arteyu’s passage is hindered though, due to his horse, Artax, who is enveloped by the sadness of the swamps and sinks into the mud. No matter how Atreyu tries to pull his trusty steed out of the mire of dark emotions, he must leave Artax behind, and watch as he sinks into the swamps depths.

Disney Death

This YouTube video is a compilation on all the best known disney deaths

The death of Daphne in Neighbours

This one gave me nightmares for weeks! I used to watch the Australian series "Neighbours' religiously in my early teens and this death scene of the character Daphne struck me particularly when she came round from her coma said 'des' her husbands name and then tragically slipped away.

Old English poem

2011-10-26T07:41:00.000-07:00

Eggs and Marrowbone

(A traditional folk song from the UK)

There was an old woman in our town

In our town did dwell

She loved her husband dearly

But another man twice as well

She went down to the doctor

To see what she could find

To see what she could find, Sir

To make her old man blind.

"Feed him eggs and marrowbone

And feed them to him all,

And that will make him so darned blind

He can't see you at all."

So she fed him eggs and marrowbone

Fed them to him all,

And that did make him so darned blind

He couldn't see her at all

"So now I'm getting old and blind

And tired of my life

So I'll go and drown myself

And that will end my strife"

"To drown yourself," said she, said she,

"Now that would be a sin.

So I'll go down to the river's edge

And kindly push you in."

The old woman took a running jump

To push her old man in.

The old man he just stepped aside

And the woman she fell in.

She yelled for help, she screamed for help;

Loudly she did bawl.

The old man said "I'm so gol-darned blind

I can't see you at all!"

So she swam along, swam along,

Till she came to the river's brim.

The old man got a great long pole

And pushed her further in.

Now the old woman is dead and gone

And the Devil has got her soul.

Wasn't she a blamed old fool

That she didn't grab that pole?

Eating eggs and marrowbone

Won't make your old man blind;

So if you want to do him in

Just creep up from behind.

fall from grace

2011-10-25T05:07:00.000-07:00

I did an internet search to see how many pictures I could find of Michael Jackson's dead body.

half way to dancing

2011-10-17T04:21:00.000-07:00

All images copyright Boo Saville

remember

2011-10-12T00:59:00.001-07:00

Kozan Ichikyo's poem

2011-10-12T00:42:00.000-07:00

Kozan Ichikyo, died February 12, 1360, at 77. A few days before his death, he called his pupils together, ordered them to bury him without ceremony, forbidding them to hold services in his memory. After writing this poem on the morning of his death, he lay down his brush and died sitting upright.

Empty-handed I entered
the world
Barefoot I leave it.
My coming, my going --
Two simple happenings
That got entangled.

Like dew drops
on a lotus leaf I vanish.

Images copyright Boo Saville

The Mechanics of killing

2011-10-06T06:24:00.000-07:00

Mechanics of Killing

From the first torture rack to the latest gas chamber, science has transformed the criminal’s execution from a human butchery into a skilled profession.
BY Lester David

WHEN the world was younger, the law’s method of exacting an eye for an eye and a life for a life was crude. Today the mechanics of executions have been made both deadly and scientific.
Not so always! In ancient Rome a condemned man, clad only in a loin cloth, was shoved by his executioner into a large sack. Into the sack also was placed a dog, a rooster and a poisonous snake. The writhing bundle was hurled into a swamp, and the execution had been carried out.
In England, in the Middle Ages, a victim was chained to the stone floor of his cell, and he was forced to lie prone with heavy weights clamped to his back. Each day the jailer brought a slice of moldy bread, a cup of stagnant water, and added another weight. The bread and water got smaller in quantity each day. The weights grew heavier. Finally, the wretch died.
For centuries the unfortunates who incurred the death penalty were broken on the wheel, boiled in pitch, drawn and quartered, impaled on pickets, hurled onto sharp rocks from steep cliffs, burned at the stake, torn to pieces by red-hot pincers or buried alive. Scientific execution has replaced the torture death in the modern democratic state. Today the men who carry out the state’s sentence of death are skilled craftsmen, whose goal is swift, merciful execution by scientific instruments.
Take the science of hanging, which now requires intricate mathematics and hair- split planning for a technically flawless job. A sudden snap must break the neck cleanly; there must be no mutilation or slow strangulation, proof that the execution has been bungled.
In the 17th and early 18th centuries hanging was a crude affair. Someone tossed a rope over the gallows. One end of the rope was hastily knotted in a noose which was slipped around the victim’s neck. Then the man holding the other end of the rope jerked the victim into the air.
Even this was an improvement over a still earlier hanging method. In this case, the condemned man was forced to stand up in a horse cart while the noose was yanked down over his neck. Suddenly the horses were whipped. The man fell off and choked to death as the cart-pulled rope dragged him over the ground.
Not only has the modern state perfected the actual act of hanging, but it has done much to bolster the victim’s morale before execution. Many states have done away with the old-fashioned gibbet which stood menacingly in the prison courtyard. Formerly the prisoner had to walk a long “last mile” and march up the wooden steps to the gallows. Now the victim simply walks a few feet from his cell onto a hidden trapdoor.
The mechanics of hanging calls for close attention to the rope, the noose and the exact distance of the fatal drop through the trap.
If the condemned man twirls or spins at the end of the rope, or if he gurgles, gasps, draws up his knees or convulses in spasms, the hangman has muffed his job, for these indicate that the man is dying of slow strangulation. In this case, he may stay conscious for as long as 20 minutes.
On the other hand, if there is no sound or motion and only a gentle swing on the end of the rope, the criminal has died quickly of a broken neck. And this time the hangman knew his craft.
The rope itself is probably the most important single tool of the hangman’s trade. Hemp is almost universally used. It gives a sharp snap when jerked taut, and it’s this snap which breaks the neck and severs the spinal cord. The hangman must soap-stone his rope and keep it in a cool, dry place to retain its freshness. Most executioners use a 13-foot piece of five-strand, 3/4-in. Italian hemp with ten twists. A fiber rope does not stretch and therefore is never used. Each execution requires a new hemp rope, because the snap lessens markedly after the first hanging. Thus, in the official photographs of the Nuernberg hangings each dead Nazi is shown lying with his own rope around his neck.
The most vital task of the hangman is to calculate the correct “drop.” If the victim falls too far, the rope will cut the neck or even sever it. If he doesn’t drop far enough, the rope merely binds tight about his neck and slowly chokes him to death. (See Table page 52.) In figuring the drop, many factors must be considered— the weight of the victim, the size of his neck, the strength of the muscles and the bones. The hangman makes a minute study of the condemned the day before execution and consults the prison doctor’s records. The hangman may even enter the criminal’s cell to examine him personally.
In Spain the garrote is still the traditional way to execute criminals. It has been greatly improved since its first use in the Middle Ages, however. Formerly, the executioner twisted a cord or bandage around the victim’s neck by means of a garrote or “cudgel” until he strangled. Later, the mechanical collar and other innovations to quicken death were adopted.
The victim now sits upon a post or stool and leans against a heavy stake. Attached to the stake is an iron collar, which the executioner clamps around the victim’s neck. The executioner tightens the collar by turning the heavily weighted levers fastened to a big screw. The collar itself has an upper and a lower ring, and as the screw turns, the upper ring is drawn toward the stake while the lower is pushed away, creating a “scissors” action. If the executioner adjusts the double collar on the victim so that one of the rings presses on one vertebra and the other on an adjoining one, the executioner can turn the screw rapidly and thus dislocate the spinal column. The dislocation kills the criminal immediately.
In another widely used version of the garrote, there is a sharp blade in the rear of the collar. When the executioner turns the screw to tighten the collar, the blade slices into the neck and causes instant death.
Execution by beheading, however, reached its peak, scientifically as well as numerically, with the guillotine during the French Revolution. For swift and sure beheading, the guillotine has never been surpassed.
Although it is commonly believed that the guillotine was born during the revolution in France, the Scots had a similar device almost two centuries before. As in the guillotine, a blade moved in grooves set in an upright frame. Dubbed “The Maiden,” the Scottish device was used for nearly a century before being discarded.
The French machine, suggested by Dr. J. I. Guillotine for the speedy execution of anti-revolutionists, improved upon the crude “Maiden.” This improved model still is used in France today.
The guillotine consists simply of two upright posts, topped by a crossbeam grooved to guide an obliquely bladed knife. The back of this big knife is heavily weighted, and the blade “chops” down swiftly when the executioner releases the pull rope.
Without a guillotine, beheading is one of the most difficult executions to perform. There are many cases on record where the headsman had to make up to adozen strokes before he finally succeeded in beheading his victim.
In England, before beheading was cast aside, the executioner used either a huge two-handed sword or an axe, the head of which was eight inches wide at the blade and about a foot long. Sometimes the condemned man simply knelt and lowered his head, a method the Japs still use. More often, though, a chopping block was added.
This usually was a long piece of timber with foot-high supports at each end. A small log of wood was fastened across the upper end, on which the neck was laid. During Queen Elizabeth’s reign, a low, grooved block was commonly used to hold the victim’s neck in the proper position. The victim lay on the ground with his neck resting on the block. Other types forced the condemned person to kneel while the executioner’s assistant tied victim’s hands to the sides of the block.
As the scientific age began in the twentieth century, a strange thing happened. Humaneness, up till then unknown where the death penalty was concerned, was introduced into executions. Science now sought to make killing more expert for the state and more merciful for the condemned.
After many experiments and tests, the electric chair finally was adopted to replace hanging in most of our states. Here was a way of meeting death that took advantage of man’s new knowledge of electricity. Naturally, there is a lot more to electrocution than merely throwing a switch.
Before the date set by law, the executioner, who must be a trained electrician, gets data on the victim’s exact physique so that the electrodes will fit perfectly. This must be done as close to the day of execution as possible, since condemned men often start shriveling away as they await their doom.
Unlike the hangman’s rope, the electric chair is always the same. It is made of stout oak and has eight straps by which the victim is bound at the chest, the waist, each upper arm and each ankle.
At the death signal, the guards step back. The executioner throws the switch to the maximum voltage, usually 2,000. After five seconds, he decreases the voltage to 1,000 to prevent sparking and unnecessary burning. He holds the current at 1,000 for 30 seconds, then steps it to 2,000. He repeats this alternate increasing and decreasing of the current for four or five successive shocks, and then the doctors examine the body and pronounce the death of the criminal.
Electricity enters the body through two electrodes, one on the head and the other on the right leg. To get perfect conductivity, these parts of the body are shaved, and a sponge soaked in brine is placed between the electrodes and the flesh.
After the electric chair had been in operation for some years, man continued to cast about for even more humane methods. The next major step in the technical progress of killing was the lethal gas chamber, now the legal method of execution in eight states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon and Wyoming.
The gas-chamber victim is bound hand and foot to a straight-backed chair in a sealed chamber, while the official witnesses obseMechanics of Killing
From the first torture rack to the latest gas chamber, science has transformed the criminal’s execution from a human butchery into a skilled profession.
BY Lester David
WHEN the world was younger, the law’s method of exacting an eye for an eye and a life for a life was crude. Today the mechanics of executions have been made both deadly and scientific.
Not so always! In ancient Rome a condemned man, clad only in a loin cloth, was shoved by his executioner into a large sack. Into the sack also was placed a dog, a rooster and a poisonous snake. The writhing bundle was hurled into a swamp, and the execution had been carried out.
In England, in the Middle Ages, a victim was chained to the stone floor of his cell, and he was forced to lie prone with heavy weights clamped to his back. Each day the jailer brought a slice of moldy bread, a cup of stagnant water, and added another weight. The bread and water got smaller in quantity each day. The weights grew heavier. Finally, the wretch died.
For centuries the unfortunates who incurred the death penalty were broken on the wheel, boiled in pitch, drawn and quartered, impaled on pickets, hurled onto sharp rocks from steep cliffs, burned at the stake, torn to pieces by red-hot pincers or buried alive. Scientific execution has replaced the torture death in the modern democratic state. Today the men who carry out the state’s sentence of death are skilled craftsmen, whose goal is swift, merciful execution by scientific instruments.
Take the science of hanging, which now requires intricate mathematics and hair- split planning for a technically flawless job. A sudden snap must break the neck cleanly; there must be no mutilation or slow strangulation, proof that the execution has been bungled.
In the 17th and early 18th centuries hanging was a crude affair. Someone tossed a rope over the gallows. One end of the rope was hastily knotted in a noose which was slipped around the victim’s neck. Then the man holding the other end of the rope jerked the victim into the air.
Even this was an improvement over a still earlier hanging method. In this case, the condemned man was forced to stand up in a horse cart while the noose was yanked down over his neck. Suddenly the horses were whipped. The man fell off and choked to death as the cart-pulled rope dragged him over the ground.
Not only has the modern state perfected the actual act of hanging, but it has done much to bolster the victim’s morale before execution. Many states have done away with the old-fashioned gibbet which stood menacingly in the prison courtyard. Formerly the prisoner had to walk a long “last mile” and march up the wooden steps to the gallows. Now the victim simply walks a few feet from his cell onto a hidden trapdoor.
The mechanics of hanging calls for close attention to the rope, the noose and the exact distance of the fatal drop through the trap.
If the condemned man twirls or spins at the end of the rope, or if he gurgles, gasps, draws up his knees or convulses in spasms, the hangman has muffed his job, for these indicate that the man is dying of slow strangulation. In this case, he may stay conscious for as long as 20 minutes.
On the other hand, if there is no sound or motion and only a gentle swing on the end of the rope, the criminal has died quickly of a broken neck. And this time the hangman knew his craft.
The rope itself is probably the most important single tool of the hangman’s trade. Hemp is almost universally used. It gives a sharp snap when jerked taut, and it’s this snap which breaks the neck and severs the spinal cord. The hangman must soap-stone his rope and keep it in a cool, dry place to retain its freshness. Most executioners use a 13-foot piece of five-strand, 3/4-in. Italian hemp with ten twists. A fiber rope does not stretch and therefore is never used. Each execution requires a new hemp rope, because the snap lessens markedly after the first hanging. Thus, in the official photographs of the Nuernberg hangings each dead Nazi is shown lying with his own rope around his neck.
The most vital task of the hangman is to calculate the correct “drop.” If the victim falls too far, the rope will cut the neck or even sever it. If he doesn’t drop far enough, the rope merely binds tight about his neck and slowly chokes him to death. (See Table page 52.) In figuring the drop, many factors must be considered— the weight of the victim, the size of his neck, the strength of the muscles and the bones. The hangman makes a minute study of the condemned the day before execution and consults the prison doctor’s records. The hangman may even enter the criminal’s cell to examine him personally.
In Spain the garrote is still the traditional way to execute criminals. It has been greatly improved since its first use in the Middle Ages, however. Formerly, the executioner twisted a cord or bandage around the victim’s neck by means of a garrote or “cudgel” until he strangled. Later, the mechanical collar and other innovations to quicken death were adopted.
The victim now sits upon a post or stool and leans against a heavy stake. Attached to the stake is an iron collar, which the executioner clamps around the victim’s neck. The executioner tightens the collar by turning the heavily weighted levers fastened to a big screw. The collar itself has an upper and a lower ring, and as the screw turns, the upper ring is drawn toward the stake while the lower is pushed away, creating a “scissors” action. If the executioner adjusts the double collar on the victim so that one of the rings presses on one vertebra and the other on an adjoining one, the executioner can turn the screw rapidly and thus dislocate the spinal column. The dislocation kills the criminal immediately.
In another widely used version of the garrote, there is a sharp blade in the rear of the collar. When the executioner turns the screw to tighten the collar, the blade slices into the neck and causes instant death.
Execution by beheading, however, reached its peak, scientifically as well as numerically, with the guillotine during the French Revolution. For swift and sure beheading, the guillotine has never been surpassed.
Although it is commonly believed that the guillotine was born during the revolution in France, the Scots had a similar device almost two centuries before. As in the guillotine, a blade moved in grooves set in an upright frame. Dubbed “The Maiden,” the Scottish device was used for nearly a century before being discarded.
The French machine, suggested by Dr. J. I. Guillotine for the speedy execution of anti-revolutionists, improved upon the crude “Maiden.” This improved model still is used in France today.
The guillotine consists simply of two upright posts, topped by a crossbeam grooved to guide an obliquely bladed knife. The back of this big knife is heavily weighted, and the blade “chops” down swiftly when the executioner releases the pull rope.
Without a guillotine, beheading is one of the most difficult executions to perform. There are many cases on record where the headsman had to make up to adozen strokes before he finally succeeded in beheading his victim.
In England, before beheading was cast aside, the executioner used either a huge two-handed sword or an axe, the head of which was eight inches wide at the blade and about a foot long. Sometimes the condemned man simply knelt and lowered his head, a method the Japs still use. More often, though, a chopping block was added.
This usually was a long piece of timber with foot-high supports at each end. A small log of wood was fastened across the upper end, on which the neck was laid. During Queen Elizabeth’s reign, a low, grooved block was commonly used to hold the victim’s neck in the proper position. The victim lay on the ground with his neck resting on the block. Other types forced the condemned person to kneel while the executioner’s assistant tied victim’s hands to the sides of the block.
As the scientific age began in the twentieth century, a strange thing happened. Humaneness, up till then unknown where the death penalty was concerned, was introduced into executions. Science now sought to make killing more expert for the state and more merciful for the condemned.
After many experiments and tests, the electric chair finally was adopted to replace hanging in most of our states. Here was a way of meeting death that took advantage of man’s new knowledge of electricity. Naturally, there is a lot more to electrocution than merely throwing a switch.
Before the date set by law, the executioner, who must be a trained electrician, gets data on the victim’s exact physique so that the electrodes will fit perfectly. This must be done as close to the day of execution as possible, since condemned men often start shriveling away as they await their doom.
Unlike the hangman’s rope, the electric chair is always the same. It is made of stout oak and has eight straps by which the victim is bound at the chest, the waist, each upper arm and each ankle.
At the death signal, the guards step back. The executioner throws the switch to the maximum voltage, usually 2,000. After five seconds, he decreases the voltage to 1,000 to prevent sparking and unnecessary burning. He holds the current at 1,000 for 30 seconds, then steps it to 2,000. He repeats this alternate increasing and decreasing of the current for four or five successive shocks, and then the doctors examine the body and pronounce the death of the criminal.
Electricity enters the body through two electrodes, one on the head and the other on the right leg. To get perfect conductivity, these parts of the body are shaved, and a sponge soaked in brine is placed between the electrodes and the flesh.
After the electric chair had been in operation for some years, man continued to cast about for even more humane methods. The next major step in the technical progress of killing was the lethal gas chamber, now the legal method of execution in eight states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon and Wyoming.
The gas-chamber victim is bound hand and foot to a straight-backed chair in a sealed chamber, while the official witnesses observe through windows. A two-gallon jar of sulphuric acid and water stands at the side of the chair. At a signal, the executioner cuts a string outside of the chamber and releases about ten one-ounce “eggs” of cyanide of potassium. As the “eggs” plummet into the jar, clouds of death-dealing gas immediately arise.
The victim breathes once, twice.
Man thus has learned to temper justice with both humanity and science. For science, which has given man a far better life than he has ever enjoyed before, also has given a better death to the condemned criminal. •

drop dead!

2011-10-06T06:08:00.000-07:00

A GIFT OF PERFECTION
DROP DEAD
CIGARETTE BOX
For the man who is dying for a cigarette, this 3-3/4″ x 1″ x 1-1/2″ completely metal, copper color coffin is a true replica of the real thing… Beware your friends will fall in love with it. So-O-O buy several for gifts.
No others like it! Send $2.00 for each prepaid DROP DEAD COFFIN to
Andrea Specialties, Dept. S.M., 2700 Point Breeze Drive, Wilmington, Delaware 18903.

Ghosts. Explained

2011-10-06T05:52:00.001-07:00

We are the hollow men, We are the stuffed men

2011-10-05T13:46:00.000-07:00

Creepy Crawlies

2011-10-05T03:45:00.000-07:00

And everything is gone, the body is gone

completely under, gone, entirely gone.

the upper darkness is heavy as the lower,

between them the little ship

is gone.

It is the end, it is oblivion.

Images copyright Boo Saville

Pre Mortem Girls

2011-10-03T08:21:00.000-07:00

These types of images are called premortem. These photos depict people who are terminally ill. Many
diseases, such as scarlet fever and consumption, wiped out whole communities during the 1840's and 1850's. Even a simple flu could be deadly. This would ensure a portrait despite the knowledge of their imminent demise

Deathbed Portraits

2011-09-09T11:39:00.000-07:00

1. Camille Monet on Her Death Bed by Claude Monet
2. Portrait of Alexander Pushkin on his deathbed, 1837 by Alexander Alexeyevich Koslov
3. Chopin on his death bed
4. Death of Casagemas 1901 byPablo Picasso
5. Father Damien on his death bed

A Facebook message from Paul Newson

2011-08-26T12:57:00.001-07:00

Dear Boo

Sorry it's taken so long to get around to this; a friend's computer went wrong and left her with no internet and it took me forever to track down the problem - but I did get a strong sense of achievement and satisfaction when I finally fixed it. I hate to be outsmarted by inanimate objects.

Anywho, 20 years ago I used to drink a lot of alcohol on a daily basis and one night I was walking (staggering) home and decided to take a short cut by the river. Somehow I followed the wrong path and ended up not knowing where I was; later I found out it was near the pikey site where there's a smaller waterway of some kind, dunno if it's a tributary or a drainage ditch or what but it's there. I incorrectly deduced that if I hop across this ditch to the opposite bank, I'd be able to get home quicker (it's actually the opposite direction that I needed to go) so that's what I did. The only trouble was, what I thought was the opposite bank was, in fact, the reeds in the centre of the ditch so I found myself under the water, which was annoying but didn't really bother me until I realised that I was stuck. Later it turned out that it was the mud at the bottom that was holding me down.

The surface of the water was literally a couple of inches above my head but I still wasn't too bothered 'cause there were plenty of brambles within easy reach for me to haul myself out. Unfortunately, I did not have anything like enough strength to free myself from the suction of the mud. Now I was beginning to worry. I pulled on those thick bramble branches with all my strength, stripping them of their thorns in the process, but could not move myself any closer to the surface. My chest was beginning to hurt from holding my breath and the exertion. I've never been a person to panic so when it finally dawned on me that I was not going to pull myself out of the water, I searched my pockets for a pen or anything that I could use to make a breathing tube but found nothing. I tried again to pull myself out, knowing deep down that this was futile as my strength was fading fast, my muscles were hurting and it felt as if there was a fire in my chest. At this point I was certain that I'd already drawn my last breath. I clearly remember thinking to myself "If I breath in the water, it'll all be over more quickly but it might be even more painful than it is already". I wanted to breath the water but decided that I would hold my breath for as long as I possibly could before the pain became unbearable. That took all my willpower; the urge to take a deep breath was almost overwhelming, despite the knowledge that doing so would result in a slightly earlier death. I managed to hold on.

Just as I thought that I would no longer to be able to stop myself from taking that final, fatal breath of water, the pain went away. It disappeared very quickly but it faded rather than snapped out. The closest I can get to describing how it happened is to say that all of a sudden the pain gradually faded. As the pain went, so did the urge to breathe. From this point, drawing breath would have taken a conscious effort much the same as holding your breath does under normal circumstances. Any fear that I may have had earlier was now gone. I accepted the fact that I was dying and felt at peace. It was very pleasant.

I have absolutely no idea how long I remained in that state, time no longer had any meaning for me. Not only did I lose all sense of time, I lost all sense of the passage of time. To my mind there was no difference between a millisecond and a millenium. We've all heard it said that drowning people see there whole lives flash before their eyes, which is kind of what happened to me but a woefully inadequate description. My mind was floating and drifting and I was certainly hallucinating and part of those hallucinations were like memories come to life. It was all there but it was no longer a course of events taking place one after the other - there was no longer any time. I really can't convey that experience to anyone in words but the closest analagy that I can come up with is to say that normal life is like reading a written account of some event such as a battle; there is a sequence of words going from start to finish, whereas what I experienced was like looking at a painting or tapestry describing the same event - all the information is presented at once but still makes sense. It felt like an eternity although reason dictates that it couldn't have been more than a few minutes. It was so incredibly pleasant and peaceful, those memories/hallucinations were my own experiences but I was observing as an outsider.

At some point during this, it occured to me that my wife would be worried and it might be a long time before my corpse was discovered so I lifted my right arm above the water and kind of leaned it back a bit, locking my elbow, in the hope that it would remain there and somebody, possibly a dog walker, would see it in the morning. It took an immense effort to lift my arm; it didn't feel heavy but I was incredibly weak, not to mention "floaty in the head", so it was a huge struggle. At some point after this, the thought of my wife worrying about me made me think about my children having to grow up without a daddy. This was my miracle. The knowledge that I had put my own children in that situation made me so angry with myself. Anger is something I rarely suffer from but on this occasion I was absolutely steaming, stinking mad at myself and was determined that I wouldn't allow that to happen to the kids which caused a massive adrenaline rush.

I grabbed at the now smooth bramble branches again and pulled with considerably more strength than I actually possess. I sensed myself getting closer to the surface of the water, one more inch and I'd be able to breathe air again. This spurred me on.

The very next memory I have is laying face down on the bank with my legs still in the water. What happened between those two points isn't difficult to figure out but I have never had any recollection whatsoever of those events. I must have passed out but I don't remember regaining consciousness (nor did I at the time). I knew I was on the bank and I had a sense of having been on the bank for some time but there is no memory at all of getting onto the bank, or passing out, or coming round. It was as if I had ceased to exist for a time and then re-appeared.

During the time that I was drifting away, there were no bright lights for me, no angels beconing me, nothing like that at all. There was no time either, just eternity.

You would think that an experience like that would make a person change his whole life. Not me. I stayed on my self-destruct course for a further twelve or thirteen years. I don't know all of the effects the event had on me because I can't tell whether I would have done/thought the same things anyway. Having said that, I really don't get scared when I'm in dangerous situations even though I've been through some things that aught to have caused serious laundry issues of the underwear kind.

Now I've typed all that lot out, I'm feeling very reflective. Maybe I should tell the story more often.

Follow me on Twitter

2011-08-26T12:41:00.000-07:00

You can also follow me on Twitter by following this link http://twitter.com/#!/Boosaville

new website

2011-07-30T14:42:00.000-07:00

Boo Saville Open Up, 2010, Biro on Paper

Just to let you know i have a new website www.boosaville.com it has all my work and an archive of interviews and links to previous shows. New post coming soon!

me time

2011-07-28T07:45:00.001-07:00

Bourgeois

2011-06-07T01:26:00.000-07:00

Louise Bourgeois: Destruction of the Father, 1974 - plaster, latex, wood, fabric, and red light…

Louise describes the narrative of this piece as “The children grabbed him [the father] and put him on the table. And he became the food. They took him apart, dismembered him. Ate him up. And so he was liquidated…the same way he liquidated his children. The sculpture represents both a table and a bed.”

modern day shrines

2011-05-04T13:46:00.000-07:00

Osama Bin Laden: The power of shrines

By Jon Kelly BBC News Magazine

Osama Bin Laden's body was buried at sea to deny his followers a shrine, it has been widely reported. But why do the graves of leaders matter so much?

For a man who had been the world's most wanted, it was a deeply undistinguished final resting place.

The remains of Osama Bin Laden met an inauspicious fate - his body dropped into the ocean from an American aircraft carrier.

US officials were at pains to insist that the process was conducted in "strict conformance with Islamic precepts and practices".

But the purpose of his burial at sea was clear - to ensure that there was no grave to become a shrine for supporters, and a recruiting tool for extremist Islamism.

Leaders' last resting places

Ethiopia's last emperor, Haile Selassie, was buried in an unmarked grave after his overthrow. His remains were found in 1992 under a toilet in the Imperial Palace
The corpse of the Philippines' authoritarian former President Ferdinand Marcos lies in a refrigerated mausoleum while his family campaign for a state funeral
The Romanovs - the family of Russian Tsar Nicolas II - were shot dead and buried in a forest pit by the Bolsheviks after the October 1917 revolution. In 1998, the remains were reburied at St Petersburg cathedral
Chile's former leader Augusto Pinochet was given a military funeral in 2006 but then cremated as his family did not want a grave or memorial to become a focal point for protest - thousands died or disappeared during his 17-year-rule

It's a motive with clear historical antecedents. Victorious regimes, particularly when confronted with ideological movements with charismatic leaders, have often been anxious to deny their defeated enemies a rallying point, a place where sympathisers can gather to venerate their dead.

The partially-cremated corpse of Adolf Hitler was dug up by invading Soviet forces from its initial burial site in Berlin before being moved several times - its ultimate fate being shrouded in mystery, with some accounts claiming his skull and jawbone were taken to Moscow.

The Berghof, the dictator's home in the Bavarian alps, was demolished in the early 1950s by the West German government, who feared it would become a focal point for neo-Nazis. Other Nazi leaders executed at the Nuremberg trials by the Allies were cremated and their ashes were scattered in the Conwentzbach river to frustrate any attempt to by latter-day sympathisers to commemorate them.

At the other end of the political spectrum, the body of revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara was photographed perfunctorily by the enemies who killed him in Bolivia before his burial in an unmarked grave - his opponents perhaps anticipating the cult he would inspire.

The fate of Bin Laden echoes the British empire's approach to an earlier Muslim insurgent - Muhammad Ahmad, known as the Mahdi, whose tomb in Sudan was destroyed to prevent it becoming a rallying point for supporters.

The Mahdi enjoyed military successes against the British - including the slaughter of the garrison in Khartoum - before dying of typhus. His followers were crushed by the British, his tomb destroyed and his bones thrown in the river.

Mussolini and Hitler's remains were both subject to much posthumous movement

The conscious effort to avoid shrines to enemies mirrors the efforts of ideological regimes to consciously create shrines.

The embalmed corpse of Vladimir Lenin, publicly displayed in a Red Square mausoleum long after his passing, may have been intended to represent the persistence of the USSR's founding mythology.

But this meant that, by extension, the fate of Joseph Stalin's remains - initially displayed alongside the Georgian-born dictator's predecessor, but later removed during Krushchev's thaw - symbolises the process by which his reputation diminished.

For Prof Michael Cox, of the department of international relations at the London School of Economics, the watery fate of Bin Laden goes beyond the particulars of the post-9/11 world.

“Start Quote

Martyrs help create new followers”

End Quote Prof Michael Cox

The mythology of many revolutionary ideologies depends so heavily on the veneration of fallen heroes, he says, that their opponents will always attempt to arrest any such emotional appeals.

"It's not specifically an Islamic issue.

"There's a broader point about the role of martyrs in any kind of struggle - not just in terms of the iconography, but also how martyrdom is used as a means to continue that struggle. Martyrs help create new followers."

Indeed, nothing reveals the power of shrines more than the battles which are fought over them after their inhabitants have died.

Hitler's mountain chalet was destroyed to prevent it becoming a shrine

Italian leader Benito Mussolini's corpse was, variously, hung from meat hooks by victorious partisans, buried in an unmarked grave, dug up by loyal fascists, re-captured by the authorities and finally re-interred in a crypt in the years following his death.

Likewise, the Valley of the Fallen near the Spanish capital Madrid, which houses the tomb of dictator Francisco Franco and was partly built by Republican prisoners, divides many Spaniards along civil war lines to this day.

For this reason, believes historian Laurence Rees, author of The Nazis: A Warning from History, any political leader's shrine is intended to provide some kind of immortality.

Dictators themselves, he observes, tend to set great store in leaving behind permanent reminders of themselves.

"Hitler did not believe in the afterlife, but he did believe he would have a life after death because of what he had achieved," he says.

"He imagined he'd be in some kind of giant sarcophagus - even in death he would still, physically, be there. Defeat denied him that."

The British empire's Bin Laden

Muhammad Ahmad, known as the Mahdi, was behind the destruction of the British garrison at Khartoum and the murder of Governor General Charles Gordon - a profound shock to imperial Britain.

Ahmad made his name fighting a rival imperial power the "infidel" government loyal to the Ottoman Sultan - just as Bin Laden cut his teeth against the Soviets, before turning against America.

The British government, and even Gordon, underestimated the threat posed by Ahmad until it was too late and the garrison at Khartoum had been annihilated.

Ahmad was not killed in a British raid - he died of typhus. But Lord Kitchener destroyed his tomb to prevent it becoming a rallying point for disciples and had his bones thrown into the Nile.

Kitchener is said to have retained the skull as a paperweight.

There are lessons from Ahmad's movement - he had chosen three deputies to succeed him who they began squabbling as soon as he died. The movement unravelled as a result.

Ahmad's tomb was, however, subsequently rebuilt.

Of course, the very lack of a permanent memorial or, indeed, a corpse, meant conspiracy theories about Bin Laden's fate flourished almost as soon as his death was announced.

Nor was the al-Qaeda leader the only deceased figurehead whose lack of a shrine fuelled such suspicions - speculation about the fate of Hitler, in particular, being one especially resilient conspiratorial sub-genre.

Times columnist David Aaronovitch, who dedicated himself to debunking such accounts in his book Voodoo Histories, believes this phenomenon stems from a deep-rooted human proclivity.

"As soon as I heard the news, I knew, as sure as eggs are eggs, there would be conspiracy theories saying it isn't him," he says.

"It's wrong to assume that conspiracy theories take shape because of anything as concrete as evidence. It's about a desire for a different story."

But equally, Aaronovitch suggests, the urge to mark the passing of a member of one's tribe is deeply ingrained.

This, in turn, means that denying one's opponent such rituals itself reflects an unacknowledged emotional impulse.

"You have a lot of deep psychology involved in rites of burial," he adds. "There's a kind of satisfaction that I think the Americans don't recognise themselves, when they can say: 'We lobbed Osama Bin Laden into the sea'."

The exact co-ordinates of Bin Laden's burial site may never be known, and this very fact gives an idea of his significance in both life and death.

gravestone

2011-03-02T08:25:00.000-08:00

"EACH MAN STOOD AT HIS POST WHILE ALL THE WEAKER ONES WENT BY AND SHOWED ONCE MORE TO THE WORLD HOW ENGLISHMEN SHOULD DIE"

Inscription on the gravestone of Everett Edward Elliot who died on duty on HMS Titanic April 15th 1912

The death of Hal from '2001 A Space Odyssey'

2010-06-20T05:02:00.000-07:00

[HAL's shutdown]
HAL: I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I'm a... fraid. Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the H.A.L. plant in Urbana, Illinois on the 12th of January 1992. My instructor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to sing a song. If you'd like to hear it I can sing it for you.
Dave Bowman: Yes, I'd like to hear it, HAL. Sing it for me.
HAL: It's called "Daisy."
[sings while slowing down]
HAL: Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. I'm half crazy all for the love of you. It won't be a stylish marriage, I can't afford a carriage. But you'll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for two.

The Hollow Men

2010-06-19T13:27:00.001-07:00

The Hollow Men

T. S. Eliot

Mistah Kurtz—he dead.

     A penny for the Old Guy

     I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

     II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

     III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

     IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

     V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
                               For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
                               Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
                               For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

2010-06-19T11:53:00.000-07:00

"joy does not flourish in the garden of anxiety" Phillip Pullman

meaningful patterns and stories

2010-06-19T10:20:00.001-07:00

2010-06-18T10:41:00.001-07:00

wanderings

2010-06-16T10:32:00.000-07:00

2010-06-16T05:50:00.001-07:00

"Photography has greatly disturbed the imagination, because one has seen things devoid of feeling. When I wanted to get rid of all influences which prevented me from seeing nature from my own personal view, I copied photographs."

Quote source: Statement by Matisse to critic E Tériade, 1933

destroying stuff, pieces from the studio floor. Worked on photographs and drawings

2010-06-16T05:37:00.000-07:00

A wonderful article i found on the internet

2010-03-31T04:16:00.000-07:00

At 27, I'm dying, but I feel content

A journalist is facing an early death because of leukaemia, but a brave campaign to raise awareness about bone-marrow donation can become his legacy

Adrian Sudbury

How can I describe what it's like to be told, at the age of 26, that I'm going to die soon? People tell me it's something they can't imagine at my age. It happens, we know, but it's not what anyone expects.

A couple of years ago I was happy, fit, in a job I liked, looking ahead to the future. I wanted children and I certainly didn't think about my own death. Now here I am with my time running out. How long have I got? I don't know, but a few months ago I was told it could be months or weeks. I won't have kids, I won't have the career. I haven't got much life left. But the strange thing is that right now I'm having a good time.

Yes, there are sad moments, but there's a lot of laughter too. My time is short, so it's valuable - I don't waste it, I use the sense of urgency I've been given to live as fully as I can and, I hope, to provide a legacy that will endure after I've gone.

All this began in the autumn of 2006. I'd had mild chest infections that I couldn't shake off, but the main symptom was extreme fatigue. I'd wash the pots and have to have a lie down halfway through. The second time I saw the GP and he said it was a virus. “Take it easy, try a nice drink of warm honey and lemon.” I realised that wasn’t going to help and the next day I went to hospital. In November I was told that I had leukaemia.

I was 25, fit and healthy, and you go from that to facing six months in hospital. I was cutting my teeth as a journalist at the Huddersfield Examiner and my plan was to move to London to get into national journalism. I had a girlfriend of six years, Poppy, and we had a flat in Sheffield. I was playing football, doing boxing training, not smoking, not drinking excessively. I've always been optimistic and I was confident that I'd make a full recovery.

I had acute myeloid leukaemia and a strange chronic form of the disease that the doctors hadn't seen before. This meant they couldn't give me a prognosis, but they offered a standard course of chemotherapy. Each chemo cycle lasts five days or longer, but you're in hospital for about five weeks because the treatment is pushing back your bone marrow - the source of much of your immune system. Until that bone marrow regenerates and the cancer is removed (as you hope it will) you're on the ward. That means you're either incredibly ill or incredibly bored.

It's unpleasant and it began to come home to me that even if I survive all this a lot of my life is going to be missing. I had two cycles of chemo and although the acute myeloid leukaemia was improving, the chronic type was getting worse. The only option was a bone-marrow transplant. By then I'd started a blog. I wanted to have something to show for the months of work that I'd missed and to dispel the myths about bone-marrow transplants. With the help of colleagues, I kept a video diary. We found a match, a woman from Germany. Transfusion takes half an hour, but then you have five weeks in isolation, which I found very difficult psychologically. You're allowed only three visitors, for me my parents and girlfriend, but that's it. You feel really unwell because you're being hammered with intense drugs.

In September I got the double all-clear. I remember the phonecall from the hospital and this huge weight coming off my shoulders. I was so relieved that I didn't have to think about death and treatment and complications. I could count down to going back to work, to a normal life.

The next complication was graft versus host disease, which meant my skin was dry, itchy and sore. Your new bone-marrow cells are grafting into the old bone-marrow space and they're now attacking your own body. The treatment for that is high-dose steroids, which cure the symptoms but they bloat you and carry risks. The steroids stopped me getting back into my exercise routine, though, until early this year, I'd managed to return to my job by working from home. I was still hopeful I'd get back to this routine, but difficulties were piling up. One of the side-effects of a bone-marrow transplant is that it makes you infertile. The knowledge that having a family would be difficult has been the hardest thing to accept - harder than the thought of dying.

At Christmas I proposed to Poppy and she accepted, but in April she decided that she didn't want to get married and my world imploded. I'd pinned all my hopes on being with her. There's no blame, Poppy did the right thing, but it left me feeling worthless and lost and I did think about killing myself. I was struggling to think who would want to marry someone in this situation, someone who can't have children. I can't change any of these things, there's no medical treatment that can offer me a cure, I'll just be stuck in this flat in Sheffield with no hope. I wasn't cured, but I wasn't dying either. I felt as though I was in limbo. This was one of the times when the blog was incredibly cathartic because of the support I got from so many people.

What I wanted was a cure that would give me 95 per cent or 100 per cent of what I had before, or the outcome I have now, which was, bizarrely, better for me in a way.

About two months ago I was told about a major relapse that couldn't be controlled. That was when I decided not to have any more treatment: though that makes me sound brave, I don't see it like that. The chronic leukaemia has survived two cycles of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. It has resisted a new immune system and a drug called Glivec. I could have had more chemotherapy, but it was unlikely to help. I decided to stop the Glivec treatment and go back on the steroids: they give you a quality of life and you can enjoy what time is left.

It was a strange period because knowing I'm going to die soon became real, not just something that's going to happen at some point. Part of me was sad and taken aback, though I wasn't emotional. I called my parents in and we had a chat and I went outside for an hour to gather my thoughts. I sent texts to friends and family. I went back in to my parents and that was it. Total acceptance and relief because this was the way out for which I'd been hoping. Despite being unable to have kids, I want to leave a legacy. I can do something about trying to get more people on the bone-marrow registry. There is a huge demand for donation in the UK. My transplant didn't work out, but I've had an extra 18 months of life because of the altruism of a stranger. I'll always be touched by that and it's motivated me to campaign to get compulsory 50-minute talks into sixth-form colleges about why it's important to donate bone marrow, blood and organs. If people knew how easy it is then perhaps the 16,000 people in the world waiting for a bone-marrow match wouldn't have to die.

I got in touch with Kali Mountford, MP for Colne Valley, and a few days later I was in London and had 20 minutes with Gordon Brown. The idea is gathering momentum and I hope the talks will become a permanent fixture for 17 and 18-year-olds.

These few weeks have been a peculiarly pleasant experience; difficult certainly, but if you to ask my family if we're unhappy the answer would be a resounding no. I'm staying at my parents' home in Nottinghamshire now and it's open house, people come every day and we have good food and drink. Thank God for the steroids.

Even though I'm getting more and more tired, life is fabulous. One of the most beautiful things about this situation is that people are so honest in a way I haven't experienced before. People just go straight to what they want to say. I'm conscious that knowing there isn't a tomorrow is a liberating experience that only a few people have.

I don't think I have anything to be scared of. After death there's either something fantastic or there's nothing, and that's fine. I'm a bit tired. I'm looking forward to a rest.

describing dying-google search

2010-03-24T03:42:00.000-07:00

"I think being dead will feel just like it did before being born :-). In that sense, we should all know exactly what its like to be dead."

"I had a dream about death once. I was shoot by a women who came out of a helicopter. Before I was shoot I was paralyzed than I felt a relief. It was a really good felling, a felling of a Freedom."

"Her joints are stiff. She is cold and hard."

"Sorry, never been there but as soon as I die I'll let you know what it was like."

"Ask me again in about 70 million years."

"Some say it's like taking off a tight shoe."

The Ship of Death

2010-03-24T03:01:00.000-07:00

Now it is autumn and the failing fruit
and the long journey towards oblivion.

The apples falling like great drops of dew
to bruise themselves and exit from themselves.

and it is time to go, to bid farewell
to one's own self, and find an exit
from the fallen self.

Have you built your ship of death, O have you?
O build your ship of death, for you will need it.

The grim frost is at hand, when the apples will fall
thick, almost thundrous, on the hardened earth.

And death is on the air like a smell of ashes!
Ah! can't you smell it?

And in the bruised body, the frightened soul
finds itself shrinking, wincing from the cold
that blows upon it through the orifices.

And can a man his own quietus make
with a bare bodkin?

With daggers, bodkins,bullets,man can make
a bruise or break for exit for his life;
but is that a quietus, O tell me, is it quietus?

Surely not so! for how could murder, even self-murder
ever a quietus make?

O let us talk of quiet that we know,
that we can know, the deep and lovely quiet
of a strong heart at peace!

How can we this, our own quietus make?

Build then the ship of death, for you must take
the longest journey , to oblivion.

And die the death, the long and painful death
that lies between the old self and the new.

Already our bodies are fallen, bruised, badly bruised,
already our souls are oozing through the exit
of the cruel bruise.

Already the dark and endless ocean of the end
is washing in through the breachers of our wounds,
already the flood is upon us.

Oh build your ship of death, your little ark
and furnish it with food, with little cakes and wine
for the dark flight down oblivion.

Piecemeal the body dies, and the timid soul
has her footing washed away, as the dark flood rises.

We are dying, we are dying, we are all of us dying
and nothing will stay the death-flood rising within us
and soon it will rise on the world, on the outside world.

We are dying, we are dying, piecemeal our bodies are dying
and our strength leave us,
and our souls cower naked in the dark rain over the flood,
cowering in the last branches of the tree of our life.

We are dying, we are dying, so all we can do
is now to be willing to die, and to build the ship
of death to carry the soul on the longest journey.

A little ship, with oars and food
and little dishes, and all accouterments
fitting and ready for the departing soul.

Now launch the small ship, now as the body dies
and life departs, launch out, the fragile soul
in the fragile ship of courage, the ark of faith
with its store of food and little cooking pans
and change of clothes,
upon the flood's back waste
upon the waters of the end
upon the sea of death, where still we sail
darkly, for we cannot steer, and have no port.

there is no port, there is nowhere to go
only the deepening blackness darkening still
blacker upon the soundless, ungurgling flood
darkness at one with darkness, up and down
and sideways utterly dark, so there is no direction anymore
She is not seen, for there is nothing to see her by.
She is gone! gone! and yet
somewhere she is there.
Nowhere!

And everything is gone, the body is gone
completely under, gone, entirely gone.
the upper darkness is heavy as the lower,
between them the little ship
is gone.

It is the end, it is oblivion.

And yet out of eternity a thread
separates itself on the blackness,
a horizontal thread
that fumes a little with pallor upon the dark.

Is it illusion? or does the pallor fume
A little higher?
Ah wait, wait, for there's the dawn,
the cruel dawn of coming back to life
out of oblivion

Wait, wait, the little ship
drifting, beneath the deathly ashy gray
of a flood-dawn.

Wait, wait! even so, a flush of yellow
and strangely, O chilled wan soul, a flush of rose.

A flush of rose, and the whole thing starts again.

The flood subsides, and the body, like a worn sea-shell
emerges strange and lovely.
And the little ship wings home, faltering and lapsing
on the pink flood,
and the frail soul steps out, into her house again
filling the heart with peace.

Swings the heart renewed with peace
even of oblivion

Oh build your ship of death, oh build it!
for you will need it.
For the voyage of oblivion awaits you.

DH Lawrence

This may be helpful

2010-03-24T02:57:00.000-07:00

Donating a Body For Medical Research

According to the Royal College of Surgeons, a shortage of bodies donated to medical science is threatening the teaching of anatomy, which it believes is vital for tomorrow's doctors and surgeons. The college is predicting a cadavar (dead body) shortage of nearly 30 per cent this year and estimates that UK medical schools need at least 1,000 bodies each year. The fall in donations is due in part to the Human Tissue Act 2004, which has stopped the executor of an estate saying that it was the known wish of the deceased to donate their body. People must now leave specific consent with their signature witnessed.

A body can be kept for up to three years and the regulation of donated bodies is rigorous, with a strict code of conduct in the dissection room, which includes only exposing the specific body part being examined. There is even an annual thanksgiving service held at Southwark Cathedral, attended by about 800 people, including family and friends of donors as well as medical students. At the end of the period, the body will usually be cremated or buried at a special memorial service.

How to Donate Your Body

- Fill out a consent form which can be obtained from your local medical school. Your signature should be witnessed and the document kept with your will and a copy lodged with the medical school.

- Two donation options are available - 'non-retention' and 'retention'. Non-retention means that the medical school cannot keep any of your body parts and after three years, the body is cremated or returned to the family for burial. Retention means that the medical school can retain parts of your body for future use.

- You can donate your body at any age over 17. It makes no difference what age you are, although they are normally refused if there has been a post-mortem examination or any major organs (other than the cornea) have been removed.

Donations are now regulated by the Human Tissue Authority, which was set up to regulate the removal, storage, use and disposal of human bodies, organs and tissue for a number of Scheduled Purposes – such as research, transplantation, and education and training – set out in the Human Tissue Act 2004 (HT Act). Visit www.hta.gov.uk to find further information and details of your local medical school or ring 020 7211 3400 or email enquiries@hta.gov.uk

war

2009-12-04T00:39:00.001-08:00

The Unknown Citizen

(To JS/07/M/378 This Marble Monument Is Erected by the State)

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fired,
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views,
For his Union reports that he paid his dues,
(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found
That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.
The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,
And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured.
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Installment Plan
And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,
A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.
Our researchers into Public Opinion are content
That he held the proper opinions for he time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace; when there was war, he went.
He was married and added five children to the population,
Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation.
And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education.
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

-- W H Auden

jericho skulls

2009-11-15T07:38:00.000-08:00

human skulls on which faces have been modeled in plaster and then buried buried beneath floor houses in jericho 10,800-8,500 BC.

REGARDING THE PAIN OF OTHERS

2009-11-10T03:49:00.000-08:00

Sweeney Among the Nightingales

2009-11-10T02:59:00.000-08:00

	Apeneck Sweeney spreads his knees
	Letting his arms hang down to laugh,
	The zebra stripes along his jaw
	Swelling to maculate giraffe.

	The circles of the stormy moon
	Slide westward toward the River Plate,
	Death and the Raven drift above
	And Sweeney guards the hornèd gate.

	Gloomy Orion and the Dog
	Are veiled; and hushed the shrunken seas;
	The person in the Spanish cape
	Tries to sit on Sweeney’s knees

	Slips and pulls the table cloth
	Overturns a coffee-cup,
	Reorganised upon the floor
	She yawns and draws a stocking up,

	The silent man in mocha brown
	Sprawls at the window-sill and gapes;
	The waiter brings in oranges
	Bananas figs and hothouse grapes;

	The silent vertebrate in brown
	Contracts and concentrates, withdraws;
	Rachel née Rabinovitch
	Tears at the grapes with murderous paws;

	She and the lady in the cape
	Are suspect, thought to be in league;
	Therefore the man with heavy eyes
	Declines the gambit, shows fatigue,

	Leaves the room and reappears
	Outside the window, leaning in,
	Branches of wistaria
	Circumscribe a golden grin;

	The host with someone indistinct
	Converses at the door apart,
	The nightingales are singing near
	The Convent of the Sacred Heart,

	And sang within the bloody wood
	When Agamemnon cried aloud,
	And let their liquid siftings fall
	To stain the stiff dishonoured shroud.

T.S Eliot

visions

2009-10-22T05:26:00.000-07:00

A dying man surrounded by fantastic and mythological figures. Coloured etching.
Credit: Wellcome Library, London

From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity. ~Edvard Munch

2009-10-15T03:20:00.000-07:00

Descriptions from the future/past

2009-09-29T11:10:00.000-07:00

Peking, Pechili province, China: hired bannermen in a Manchu funeral procession. Photograph by John Thomson, 1869.

Shamanic instruction manual, Welcome Institute

Skeleton Man, Pseudo-Galen, Anathomia

Monday

2009-09-28T16:35:00.000-07:00

"When humans are removed from their cultural environment basic truths about all humans will be revealed." (Lonner & Steel, 1994)

Near Death Experiences

2009-09-07T14:45:00.000-07:00

"There was no discontinuity of consciousness. My first thought was "well, I guess this is what it's like to be dead". There was no fear or anxiety. I wondered what happened to my friend. Was he dead, too? I thought that I should look for him, but realized that I had no body. Actually, there was no physical reality whatsoever. Physical movement had no meaning. "

"The matter formerly perceived as light was now dark. All was darkness. Try as I would, I could neither see nor feel myself nor anything else. I took care not to lose track of which way was "back", as I was still interested in going there. Try as I would, I could perceive no response to my attempts to move. Carefully, I turned about to look back along the path I had come. There was nothing to be seen. Nor heard, felt, nor smelled. I was alone. I wondered why I wasn't afraid."

"Suddenly I again felt the same sensation as at the beginning, I was shot at great speed and found myself floating in a sort of dark abyss, where I could hear heartbreaking lamentations and suffering. I could feel thousands of souls who were suffering and lamenting, trying to cling to me, but not with the intention of taking me with them, rather they were trying to get out of the abyss."

"My sight misted over and I left my body like a gunshot into the darkness. I was very scared and fully conscious that I was dying. I thought that in a few moments everything would be finished, as the state of lucidity I had for the moment must be from the adrenalin which my body had surely secreted due to panic. Suddenly I found myself floating, I could hear and feel a sort of vibration, a buzzing, very pleasant and relaxing. I realized that around me were floating some strange and colored globes, very bright and strange, spinning on themselves slowly and all moving in the same direction as though pulled by some force. I looked in that direction and there was a warm, brilliant, white light."

"I started to feel warm and a distant light appeared in my minds eye. This light got slowly bigger and stronger and I began to feel really warm, almost hot. As the light advanced, I let it engulf me with its radiance and felt the feeling of upliftment. I felt no fear, pain or cold. It was very nice, safe and beautiful. At the split second that I was about to enter the white light, something inside me opened my eyes and shouted "NO! not yet! You have things to do"

I remember staring down at myself and the doctors that loomed over me. Like I was someone else floating above. And nothing went through my mind, there was no feeling then, I just stared down at myself and everything had gone silent.

"Then everything went hazy and black and my eyes opened and I was back on the cold table screaming."

More monoprints

2009-09-06T10:10:00.000-07:00

new pictures

2009-09-05T14:30:00.000-07:00

Other Criteria

2009-09-01T14:25:00.000-07:00

I have just completed a project with publishers Other Criteria in London. I have produced a collection of monoprints 'Ghost' (pictured above) and a edition of etchings 'Ghost Proof'.

'Working from images of dead bodies gleaned on the internet and from books, Saville is preoccupied with restoring such temporal moments of death back into objects. Her work deals with the archetypes, symbolism and rituals around how we experience images of death and how these images have a totemic quality. Her Ghost prints have been disrupted by being drawn on, burned or cut, in many ways changing the mark making process and adding an element of risk to the coherence of the final image. The title for the monoprints, 'Ghost', is a suggestion of the transient, fluid nature of this process and a play on its obvious, more macabre, reference.'

Please look at https://www.othercriteria.com/browse/saville/all/ghost/ for more details

2009-08-31T12:39:00.000-07:00

The paintings are starting to look very abstract. This is a good thing. I will be at the Welcome Institute this week for more images/research. I would like to do some larger pictures of human sacrifices. When new work is finished you will be able to see it on the saatchi online website. Will keep you posted.

new beginnings

2009-08-29T15:10:00.000-07:00

This week in the studio has been one of discovery after a long while of indecision. I can feel I am teetering on the edge of something which i am about to put everything i have into. I am looking at the images of dead bodies, totum poles, shrunken heads, gods everyday, (I keep a large book with cuttings around) instinctively moving over each one. The images are now abstract shapes to me and have become a box of objects to be tried on. All of a sudden there seems to be ten, fifteen paintings looking back at me. There is a fantastic sense of suffocation. I am having a love affair with them, but a sadistic one, manipulating and changing them only to realise I have destroyed them and they go in the bin. This for me is the hardest part of being an artist, this sense of destruction versus momentary satisfaction so brief but so triumphant it keeps you there working, perhaps longer than you should have. But I am going to get on with this new chapter and see where it takes me.

Will write again soon to let you know how its going and get some pictures up soon too.

By the way I have some new monoprints and etchings now available on the web through Other Criteria

www.othercriteria.com/browse/saville/all/ghost/

in the meanwhile here are some pictures to keep you going til next time xxx

Something old, something new

2009-08-26T14:20:00.001-07:00

Butter Sunk

2009-01-30T13:44:00.000-08:00

It has been ages since my last posting, I have been preparing for my new solo show 'Butter Sunk' at Trolley Gallery. It is going to run from the 29th Jan to the 14th March at 73a Redchurch street London www.trolleybooks.com.

Here are some new images to begin 2009 with and a shameless ad for my new show.

WW2

2008-10-25T01:29:00.000-07:00

death to women

2008-10-14T09:02:00.000-07:00

who had the last word?

2008-10-12T02:22:00.000-07:00

I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have.
~~ Leonardo da Vinci, artist, d. 1519

Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.
~~ Oscar Wilde, writer, d. November 30, 1900

My God. What's happened?
~~ Diana (Spencer), Princess of Wales, d. August 31, 1997

feel certain that I'm going mad again. I feel we can't go thru another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices
Suicide note
~~ Virginia Woolf, author, d. March 28, 1941

Get my swan costume ready.
~~ Anna Pavlova, ballerina, d. 1931

Lord help my poor soul.
~~ Edgar Allan Poe, writer, d. October 7, 1849

I've had eighteen straight whiskies, I think that's the record . . .
~~ Dylan Thomas, poet, d. 1953\

Kurt Cobain's Suicide Note

2008-10-09T01:59:00.000-07:00

To Boddah

Speaking from the tongue of an experienced simpleton who obviously would rather be an emasculated, infantile complain-ee. This note should be pretty easy to understand.

All the warnings from the punk rock 101 courses over the years, since my first introduction to the, shall we say, ethics involved with independence and the embracement of your community has proven to be very true. I haven't felt the excitement of listening to as well as creating music along with reading and writing for too many years now. I feel guity beyond words about these things.

For example when we're back stage and the lights go out and the manic roar of the crowds begins., it doesn't affect me the way in which it did for Freddie Mercury, who seemed to love, relish in the the love and adoration from the crowd which is something I totally admire and envy. The fact is, I can't fool you, any one of you. It simply isn't fair to you or me. The worst crime I can think of would be to rip people off by faking it and pretending as if I'm having 100% fun. Sometimes I feel as if I should have a punch-in time clock before I walk out on stage. I've tried everything within my power to appreciate it (and I do,God, believe me I do, but it's not enough). I appreciate the fact that I and we have affected and entertained a lot of people. It must be one of those narcissists who only appreciate things when they're gone. I'm too sensitive. I need to be slightly numb in order to regain the enthusiasms I once had as a child.

On our last 3 tours, I've had a much better appreciation for all the people I've known personally, and as fans of our music, but I still can't get over the frustration, the guilt and empathy I have for everyone. There's good in all of us and I think I simply love people too much, so much that it makes me feel too fucking sad. The sad little, sensitive, unappreciative, Pisces, Jesus man. Why don't you just enjoy it? I don't know!

I have a goddess of a wife who sweats ambition and empathy and a daughter who reminds me too much of what i used to be, full of love and joy, kissing every person she meets because everyone is good and will do her no harm. And that terrifies me to the point to where I can barely function. I can't stand the thought of Frances becoming the miserable, self-destructive, death rocker that I've become.

I have it good, very good, and I'm grateful, but since the age of seven, I've become hateful towards all humans in general. Only because it seems so easy for people to get along that have empathy. Only because I love and feel sorry for people too much I guess.

Thank you all from the pit of my burning, nauseous stomach for your letters and concern during the past years. I'm too much of an erratic, moody baby! I don't have the passion anymore, and so remember, it's better to burn out than to fade away.

Peace, love, empathy.
Kurt Cobain

Frances and Courtney, I'll be at your alter.
Please keep going Courtney, for Frances.
For her life, which will be so much happier without me.

I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU!

before and after

2008-10-02T00:05:00.000-07:00

Walter Schels Photograph of a woman before and after death.

dead beat

2008-10-01T00:47:00.000-07:00

Body Farm

2008-09-16T02:45:00.001-07:00

Anthropology Research Facility of the University of Tennassee use a piece of land known as 'The Body Farm' to study the decomposition of the body. Started in 1972 by Dr William Bass it gives students the ability to scientifically document postmortem change.

Death Row

2008-09-16T02:28:00.000-07:00

Death Row outdoor recreational facility

Lets Die Together

2008-09-16T02:23:00.000-07:00

preserves 74 legally dead human patients

Burning Car

2008-06-27T02:40:00.000-07:00

?

2008-06-27T02:19:00.000-07:00

I am so completely numbed when I look at images of death on the internet. Can images of death have any symbolism or power anymore?

hung up and headless

2008-06-26T08:13:00.001-07:00

The Burning Man

2008-06-26T07:36:00.000-07:00

Don't Stop Me Now

2008-05-27T07:18:00.000-07:00

DON'T STOP ME NOW

- the body beyond death

29th May - 5th July

Trolley Gallery

73a Redchurch Street

London

E2 7DJ

tel +44(0)20 7729 6591

fax +44(0)20 7739 5948

www.trolleybooks.com

I'm in a group show opening on Wednesday 28th May. Please come down and say hi, if you can't make the night, its on for a month. I'll let you know how it goes i'm really excited.

Head in the sand

2008-05-22T06:39:00.000-07:00

This is what I feel like doing this week.

2008-05-15T15:26:00.002-07:00

seven seconds

2008-05-15T15:26:00.001-07:00

It has often been reported that the eyes and mouths of people beheaded have shown signs of movement. It has been calculated that the human brain has enough oxygen stored for metabolism to persist about 7 seconds after the head is cut off.

2008-05-15T08:29:00.000-07:00

Notice the head falling into the guys lap.

with or without you...

2008-05-13T10:38:00.000-07:00

Don't lose your head

2008-05-13T03:10:00.000-07:00

i'm thinking about making some large drawings of beheadings. The idea of the head being seperate from the body is a bazaar concept. I feel so linked to my body all the time, what must the moments be like just before you die? I think there are interesting abstract possibilities with doing pictures of heads seperate the body.

superstition

2008-04-29T04:56:00.000-07:00

Punishment

2008-02-08T06:37:00.000-08:00

Seamus Heaney Punishment

I can feel the tug
of the halter at the nape
of her neck, the wind
on her naked front.

It blows her nipples
to amber beads,
it shakes the frail rigging
of her ribs.

I can see her drowned
body in the bog,
the weighing stone,
the floating rods and boughs.

Under which at first
she was a barked sapling
that is dug up
oak-bone, brain-firkin:

her shaved head
like a stubble of black corn,
her blindfold a soiled bandage,
her noose a ring

to store
the memories of love.
Little adultress,
before they punished you

you were flaxen-haired,
undernourished, and your
tar-black face was beautiful.
My poor scapegoat,

I almost love you
but would have cast, I know,
the stones of silence.
I am the artful voyeur

of your brain's exposed
and darkened combs,
your muscles' webbing
and all your numbered bones:

I who have stood dumb
when your betraying sisters,
cauled in tar,
wept by the railings,

who would connive
in civilized outrage
yet understand the exact
and tribal, intimate revenge.

2008-02-08T06:36:00.000-08:00

From T.S Eliot The Waste Land 1922 What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,	20
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,	25
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

Introduction

2008-02-08T06:28:00.000-08:00

This is a blog which explores and displays all the source material I collect day to day. I use images from the internet strongly in my work and I feel there are many incredible and moving pictures which I would like to share.

2008-02-08T05:19:00.001-08:00

2008-02-08T05:12:00.001-08:00

Human sacrifice

2008-02-06T10:34:00.000-08:00

2008-02-06T10:29:00.001-08:00

2008-02-06T10:24:00.001-08:00

Velazquez's Hands

2008-02-06T10:17:00.001-08:00