Fall Of The House Of Usher

[jackokent]

I posted this up somewhere else but never mind - I saw Fall of the house of Usher performed in a really minimalist way on an empty stage with just sheets and torches. It was really really atmospheric. I was only young but I remember it like it was yesterday it was so amazing.

[Curt Chiarelli]

Originally Posted by Nesacat

Admittedly there is something morbidly fascinating about the great Victorian mausoleums and the vast cemetaries with their weeping willows. They sometimes seem to have put greater thought and energy into building their sepulchres than their homes. I personally love old cemetaries and they are my favourite places for walking in.

All those sombre stone angels and deep vaults. The great tombs and elaborate ceremonies surrounding a death. The many years of mourning that followed. Living just above the dead in many cases. Maybe in a time where life was uncertain given the many epidemics and high infant mortality rate and God was harsh and vengeful; Death was the only sure thing. It could be absolutely relied upon and any time, thought or expense spent on it would be absolutely not wasted. Death in those times would have been a lot more romantic and alluring than living sometimes was.

Hi Nesa:

Then you'd absolutely adore this photographic essay on England's Highgate Cemetary: Highgate Cemetery: Victorian Valhalla by Felix Barker Amazon.com: Highgate Cemetery: Victorian valhalla: Books: Felix Barker

I remember buying this my freshman year of college and being immediately smitten by the solemn romance of this slender volume. At turns poignant, grotesquely alluring and grandiose, the black and white photography at times captures the dark spirit that informs Dore's engravings for Milton as well as Piranesi's Carceri series. It could be said that Highgate Cemetary is more than a mere necropolis and a crazy-quilt patchwork collection of architectural anomalies - even amidst its own decay, it's an aesthetic triumph of the imagination that transcends its original purpose. A book I personally recommend very highly!

[Nesacat]

Thank you kindly Curt ... I'll add that book to my wish list on Amazon.

Highgate is beautiful and so is the City of the Dead (Necropolis) in Glasgow. There is a smaller on in Edinburgh which is also very lovely, especially since I was there at the tail end of autumn so it was damp and mist wreathed and the willows were all heavy.

I spent whole days in Highgate as well as the Necropolis in Glasgow, which is on a hill behind the Cathedral.

Here in Asia we have some lovely cemetaries too and they come up very close to streets and homes. Many are Chinese and but some of the oldest are from the Colonial times and are very melancholy and shadowed. My favourite one is in Penang. I don't think anyone visits anymore since I believe anyone related to the people there have either left Malaysia or are no longer living themselves. At least I have never seen anyone. Not anyone living and breathing anyway.

There is one cemetary in Penang that has grown up around a township so the inhabitants have to drive through it to get to and from home. Given the Eastern beliefs of ancestor worship and respect, Death and all that go with him are an integral part of our lives.

[Lobolover]

Hmm.While I like it,I prefer "MS found in a botle" .