Poet's corner. The place where Chaucer is buried:
http://www.westminster-abbey.org/tour/poet_corner.htm
and some others. Others have monuments.
So yes, state-marketing. I wonder how many are actually recognised
now? I suspect a lot have just fallen by the wayside, famous in their
day but now no longer canon-resident.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Cemetery%2C_Florence
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highgate_Cemetery
Luckily none of these have attracted a dodgy rock-star.
When I go, I want my ashes scattered in the Western Approaches.
Roger
On 3/31/07, Stephen Vincent <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Anny, the cynic and once Francophile in me wants to say that early on the
> French Government, it appears, was into marketing - putting or burying fame
> all in one place and then making it into a global destination target!
> Certainly that was not the original reason why much of Frances cultural
> wealth got buried in the same place. But a tourist economy trumps all other
> intentions, I suspect, and so France has discovered another level of
> mortuary meaning.
> (Somebody recently said that if Tourism were a country, it would be the
> third or fourth largest in the world!)
>
> I also suspect there are the families of both famous and/or not who prefer
> cremation - inaccessibility of remains becomes a virtue. Or, if you are
> really interested, read the books or look at the art of the beloved
> deceased.
>
> Yet, to contradict, I love the Vietnam Memorial as a site of grievance - and
> its huge service to the needs of this country to take account the dark facts
> of that way. May the Memorial for the Iraq dead (both Iraqi and 'Coalition
> Forces' }be enshrined in Crawford, Texas - I say. Bush should never left to
> live with himself again. I diverge!
>
> As to where to bury and enshrine poets, it's kind of a startling thought -
> but sweetly curious for the imagination to wonder - if there could be a
> national burial ground in the USA, Canada, Australia or anyone else. Imagine
> - in the USA - Wallace Stevens, Dickinson, Frost, Lowell, Rexroth, Duncan,
> Langston Hughes, etc., etc., all buried in shared grounds. Talk about
> possibilities for creative landscaping! (And the politics of getting in.
> One hesitates to think of National Endowment for the Arts application to get
> your remains into a 'plot'!
>
> Just off the cuff, a single line from Beverly Dahlen's recent book, A
> Reading 18 - 20:
>
> Mourning becomes etc.
>
> I am not sure precisely why that line rings some bells, hard one. I am sure
> it was written during the overwhelming number of deaths from AIDS as that
> epidemic took off in the eighties.
>
> Stephen V
> http://stephenvincent.net/blog/
>
>
>
>
>
> > I googled Père Lachaise Cemetery because I had the idea of quoting it in a
> > poem, see here for God's sake who is in there besides the ones that Mark
> > mentioned: Doré, the same Abelard, Balzac, Isadora Duncan, Max Ernst, Gérard
> > de Nerval, and I haven't scrolled down the page, yet.
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Burials_at_P%C3%A8re_Lachaise_Cemetery
> >
> >
> >
> > On 3/30/07, Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >>
> >> You pass Chopin, Berlioz, Yves Montand and Simone Signoret on the way
> >> from the one to the other. Pretty neat, tho it definitely could use a
> >> cafe. Every decent cemetery should have a cafe.
> >>
> >> Don't tell Starbucks.
> >>
> >> The tombs of the Rothchilds are in the Montparnasse cemetery, near
> >> where I used to live. Their very plain crypts are marked with a larfe
> >> R, reminiscent of the double R of Rolls Royce.
> >>
> >> Check outthis funereal news in the New York Times:
> >> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/30/us/30ashes.html
> >>
> >> Mark
> >>
> >> At 04:34 PM 3/30/2007, you wrote:
> >>> I guess I would just split myself and gather around both. Never been
> >> there
> >>> even if I was twice in Paris but just for a short stay.
> >>>
> >>> On 3/30/07, Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Which in French means "don't gambl;e with tough guys." Always good
> >> advice.
> >>>>
> >>>> Last time I was in Pere Lachaise more folks were gathered arounf
> >>>> Apollinaire than Morrison. Something to cheer about.
> >>>>
> >>>> Mark
> >>>>
> >>>> At 03:33 PM 3/30/2007, you wrote:
> >>>>> Sorry, I meant to add that in Paris, where Jim
> >>>>> Morrison is buried, they have a French saying that
> >>>>> translates roughly as "don't put the cart before The
> >>>>> Doors."
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Candice
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>> __________________________________________________________________
> >>>> __________________
> >>>>> Expecting? Get great news right away with email Auto-Check.
> >>>>> Try the Yahoo! Mail Beta.
> >>>>> http://advision.webevents.yahoo.com/mailbeta/newmail_tools.html
> >>
>
--
My Stuff: http://www.badstep.net/
"Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious." Oscar Wilde
|