Now that we're all bummed out by the Swansea Love Story...
Photographer Walters Schels took a series of portraits of dying people, shortly before and after their deaths. It is pretty compelling stuff and I came across it via a new magazine called Death. Death Mag describes itself as a magazine for the enthusiast and the non-enthusiast alike," which is both hilarious and profound. Anyway, you can view it for free online but I hope to pick up a print copy soon.
This magazine comes at the perfect time for both you and I because I just learned we are both dying. Shit, I never thought it happen. I thought I could keep riding my skateboard forever but then I made an eight foot dive into concrete. With blood streaming out of my scalp and pouring out of my nose, I was just waiting to pass out and check out for good. Seriously though, despite my relatively tame skateboarding accident, I have indeed been contemplating death. For the last six months, as soon as I'm wake up and the back, knee and elbow pain remind me I'm still alive, I then remind myself that I am going to die. It could be today, maybe in a few years, maybe fifty years from now but it is going to happen. To me, to you and everyone we know. And I'll tell you what, it has been the best anti-depressant ever, as morbid as it might initially appear.
You have to go to some dark places to see the light. Death Magazine might be a good start.
I highly recommend "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying" by Sogyal Rinpoche also.
Then you can read some crap I've written about death in Foulweather #3 and the upcoming issue of Kurangabaa.
