<\/p>\n
Would you<\/strong><\/span> prefer to be buried or cremated? To put it another way, rot or<\/span> burn? The “rot or burn\u201d expression comes from a Saul Bellow novel. In Humboldt\u2019s Gift, <\/em>the main character, Charlie Citrine, is always rambling on about death, and how death might feel the same as before you were born.<\/p>\n Also, along the same lines, check out Nabokov\u2019s memoir Speak, Memory<\/em>, which opens with “. . . Our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. Although the two are identical twins, man, as a rule, views the prenatal abyss with more calm than the one he is heading for.\u201d<\/p>\n I try to imagine my prenatal abyss. For instance, September 1949. (I was conceived in October 1949.) How does it feel not to exist? Bellow believed something comes after death, but he just said “something.” Be more specific, Saul!<\/p>\n I\u2019ve going<\/strong><\/span> to rot. My wife would prefer to burn, but I’ve bought burial plots at Hillcrest cemetery. The plots come with cement coffin sealers. The vault sealers are pretty much mandatory at every cemetery I’ve ever been to. I\u2019m not wild about coffin sealers. They don\u2019t prevent the rot, but they slow it down. They aren\u2019t sealed airtight because bodily gases would explode them. The vaults are mandatory to keep the cemetery grounds level. I\u2019m all about being level. (I like levels — those tools with the bubbles.)<\/p>\n One personal request: if you have something interesting to say about September 1949, let me know. For instance, my friend Mark Schilling, who was born in August 1949, can probably give me the lowdown.<\/p>\n Take me home, to the place I belong . . .<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n Change of topic: L’shana tova!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Would you prefer to be buried or cremated? To put it another way, rot or burn? The “rot or burn\u201d expression comes from a Saul Bellow novel. In Humboldt\u2019s Gift, the main character, Charlie Citrine, is always rambling on about death, and how death might feel the same as before you were born. Also, along […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28880"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29067,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28880\/revisions\/29067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}