rebness | (no subject)

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).

Threaded | Flat

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 ? :)

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!

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? :(

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:

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?

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

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.

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.

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...