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[rebness]

For someone who is morbidly (ha) afraid of death - and I mean truly, awake-at-4am-thinking-it-over afraid - I sure do like my cemeteries. In fact, the more afraid of death I grow, the more I love cemeteries. They have to be old, though, and the pain far removed from them. I don't like new tombs at all, but old ones are so peaceful and beautiful.

I'm going to start a series in my LJ and post some photos of my favourite graveyards. Thus far, I have Pere-Lachaise and Montmarte (Paris), La Tour de Carol (French/Spanish border), that awesome old one in Boston, Lafayette, St. Louis No.1 and the one I can't remember (New Orleans), San Michele (Venice), various Greek and English cemeteries and, um, a deeply saddening one in Sarajevo. Exciting and weird times!

















Jim Morrison, we salute you. And steal from your grave.



This one's too sad and shiny and poor Edith. ;_;







Heloise and Abelard. This is a terrible photo but let me show you why...



Seriously. Renovations, you're necessary but confound me. >:| 





Herp derp





Modigliani and my icon hunny, his lover Jeanne Hebuterne <3



The monuments in the WWII/Holocaust memorial are really hard to even look at.







And now Oscar Wilde.



I'm not sure how I feel about this. I can't really judge as yes, I have kissed that grave myself before...



And perhaps Oscar would find it all rather splendid...



...But I judge this clown so hard. What kind of person writes in textspeak on a memorial? (Probaby the same asshat who wrote 'Bon Jovi' on the front).

Comments

[iskra667.livejournal.com]

West Brompton cemetery in London is lovely if you've not seen it.

What is it about kisssing Oscar Wilde's tomb? A friend and I went to see it, but neither of us knew why people kiss the grave. Is it lucky or something ? :)

[rebness.livejournal.com]

I shall have to go and see it! I've neglected English cemeteries for too long. I think I'm spoilt because we have a couple of lovely old ones in this village alone.

I honestly don't know where the Wilde tradition came from. I first saw that grave in 2000 and there were only really lipstick marks on the back. It's absolutely covered in lipstick and graffiti these days and it's pretty intrusive.

[rebness.livejournal.com]

Also, did you visit Victor Noir's grave in Pere Lachaise? Now that one has a very interesting tradition...

[iskra667.livejournal.com]

No! What is it? :D

[rebness.livejournal.com]

See how a part of his statue is rather...ahem, shiny? Women are supposed to rub it to wish for a lover.

The first time I saw someone doing that, I just stared!

Not that I immediately went over and did the same.

[iskra667.livejournal.com]

lol! brilliant!

We went to Montparnasse cemetery with a friend (we end up in a cemetery everytime we're too late to get into the catacombes :p) and there's Man Ray grave. I wanted to leave him a naked picture of me, since he was quite fond of naked women photographs while alive and he made so many beautiful ones, but I do not tend to carry around such items with me, so I left a tiny crappy 1cm square pic from my business card of an empty corridor with not one naked woman in sight :( loose! :D

[rebness.livejournal.com]

Oh, oh! I have to go and see Montparnasse, and Charonne cemetery to pay homage to General Lafayette.

I didn't know Man Ray was buried there -- that was an awesome idea, though. XD

[gairid.livejournal.com]

WOnderful set--I am particularly pleased to see Modigliani's resting place (I didn't know it was in Pere-Lachaise) and..yes, one must always take pictures of any DuLac mentions.

I have one from Lafayette No. 1 of the tomb of Marius (Francoise). Oh yes.

Wonderful idea...and get clicking in some of those marvelous English cemeteries, girl!

[rebness.livejournal.com]

I remember casting a cursory glance over it years ago, but I became really interested in his life story and the intensity of his relationship with Hebuterne lately, so it was a personal mission to go and pay homage to him properly this time.

It seems everyone's buried in Pere Lachaise but I was a bit pressed for time (it was bitterly cold that day) so had to leave out Chopin, Moliere et al.

I was SUCH a nerd in New Orleans. Anything vaguely VC-ish got snapped. And yes, even though I am a rational being and they're not real, I still kept an eye out for any du Lacs in St. Louis. *embarrassed*

I promise to take some lovely English pics this weekend, if the sun puts in an appearance!

[ex-amecia-m.livejournal.com]

I love these pictures and I completely agree that there's something so beautiful and peaceful about old tombs. It's such a wonderful feeling standing in an old cemetery and feeling all the history that must be packed in to each tomb. God, I sound morbid.

I think it's terrible that Oscar Wilde's grave has been graffitied like that. I don't see anything wrong with kissing his grave but THAT? :(

[rebness.livejournal.com]

No, you don't sound morbid to me. That's just how I feel. They're beautiful places packed with history. I love them.

I know, I was taken aback by the amount of grafftti on Wilde's grave. They tried to fence it off a few years ago. I think perhaps they should clean it and fence it off again because nobody cares about the graffiti idiots' names. >:|

[ukashi-goshi.livejournal.com]

Those are beautiful pictures! If you were here, I'd take you to Swan Point Cemetery, a beautiful old New England cemetery that is a 5 minute walk from my house, graves dating back to the 1700s, and situated on a point of land overlooking the river (and swans actually do hang out there, so the name makes sense).

Here's a photo from Swan Point that I found online:

[rebness.livejournal.com]

One day in the future, I'll hold you to that!

That's a gorgeous grave. I love the melancholy art of these places.

It's hard to find good graveyards for anything before 1800 so again, one day, I'll be there... ;)

[ukashi-goshi.livejournal.com]

I hope so! That would rock. :)

[annemariewrites.livejournal.com]

I would battle a tropical storm to roam a cemetery with you! Oh, wait. >:D That first photo, I'm going to steal it. Just so you know. I have a photo of the same statue, but it's not from the same angle. Did you take these in '08 when we went with that sexy ladydaydream?

[rebness.livejournal.com]

Ooh, no... took them a couple of weeks ago! But steal away, bb!

[saffronlie.livejournal.com]

I think they have cleaned Oscar's grave at least once, but the lipstick comes right on back. IDK. I'm not sure whether he would have liked it. I didn't kiss it myself, I just wrote a note on paper and left it for him. I like to ponder what might have happened to the note when the wind picked it up, and if anyone found it. :D

[rebness.livejournal.com]

It's a pity - I read an article recently with Wilde's grandson about this. He said the lipstick is the worst because it contains animal fats which seep into the stone and degrade it. The note is a much better idea. :p

[jaffacakequeen.livejournal.com]

fantastic photos! i love grave yards too. but i dont want to end up in one. as romantic as it sounds to have a big weeping angel over me, i dont want to be six-foot under, trapped and rotting.

[rebness.livejournal.com]

Penny! Bahahaha :D

[marvystoop.livejournal.com]

Dude! A+ post! I'm the same, love old cemeteries.
I'm not good with remembering names of the ones i've, er, looked up on an Urban Exploration website or two but the ones i remember most was one in Paris (i think) where they let people go down into the catacombs and another which isn't a cemetery but a freaking creepy ass 'museum' sort of thing where, for decades, the corpses of the deceased were sort of mummified to preserve them and tied to walls and placed on display. Think it started with this old monk fella and then everybody else wanted to be put on display after it happened. There's kids and everything, it looks like such a sad place. And scary.

[marvystoop.livejournal.com]

Oh! And i remember another of a really sad tomb of a young boy who got knocked over by a carriage and his parents had his stone shaped into how his body was found. It's hauntingly peaceful :( can't remember which cemetery that was in.

[rebness.livejournal.com]

Ooh oh oh why have we not bonded over this

why

[pandorasblog]

In fact, the more afraid of death I grow, the more I love cemeteries. They have to be old, though, and the pain far removed from them. I don't like new tombs at all, but old ones are so peaceful and beautiful.

Oddly enough I've been going the same way. I might also be reversing my ideas about cremation vs. burial...

I think what I love most in your photos is when there are statues that really express emotion, like that woman holding the wreath. The Oscar Wilde thing intrigues me too, though I can't entirely put my thoughts about it together coherently. I'm not cool with people writing in permanent pen (and yeah, that text speak... no words!), but the urge to interact physically with the monument is interesting and hints at what I think is one of the reasons we deal with death so badly in our culture: there's rarely anything physical we can do to feel connected to the dead person. Even when people don't believe in life after death, something about kissing the monument/leaving notes and flowers reminds me of sympathetic magic: "my action is meaningful and worthwhile". It almost seems like they need a separate thing that people can kiss/write on, but I wonder if that would deflect their ardour from the actual monument...

[rebness.livejournal.com]

Whee! I love the statues, too. They're so beautiful and so melancholy.

I think you make a really interesting point on the nature of monuments, actually. I don't know if you've seen that there has been a bit of controversy in England, where a council cleared all these balloons and teddy bears and things from peoples' graves because they felt it was too trashy.

My gut reaction is to go with them -- it seems that since Diana's death, excessive emotional grieving is the order de nos jours and something completely at odds with our erstwhile Anglo-Saxon stoicism.

Then again, why shouldn't people be allowed to touch, to grieve? Why is the Mexican day of the dead ritual so beautiful and so opulent but western European graveyards cold, dark places? Who is to say?

[pandorasblog]

Yes, I've seen news items about that! It also comes up in relation to roadside memorials. My personal drawing-the-line point is when the teddybears get left to the elements and decay disturbingly - I don't think it was the intent of the leavers...!

I do sometimes wonder if there's a class element to these things, as regards what is seen as a 'proper', 'tasteful' or 'appropriate' way to mark someone's death.

I'm also not very convinced by the idea that it's against the national character; the sheer number of people expressing themselves in that way would suggest the national character is changing. It might be going back to what it was earlier; I understand (though would need to dig up references) that stoicism in the face of grief is historically a very recent change - Victorian or Edwardian, perhaps?

And yeah, there's also an argument that we're very charmed by leaving stuff at the grave when we can view it as a colourful foreign tradition, but balk at it on our own doorstep. I also wonder how it links to our post-funeral coldness: people here tend to make a fuss until the funeral and then suddenly all support vanishes... it's like putting things on the grave is a way to remind yourself and others that the grief is still there and needs acknowledgement...