Are obituaries appropriate?  

Death being the very last part...
of life, why would an obituary of good designers not be part of this forum.
Having been reminded recently that good health is not as obvious as one normally expects and being in favour of incineration I looked around for a decent urn. There have been some nice attempts to make coffins more invironmentally friendly, but has anyone seen a nice urn in which my ashes could spent some time before being thrown in the Atlantic?

I
I quite like the idea of ending up in one of these:
It has a nice Viking look to it.......

Amzaing Lives
This title sounds like a soap opera.
These two gentleman lived amazing lives...and left us a legacy to celebrate.

.
Koen! You could make your own.

I like reading any obituary that is not mine.
Rim shot.

koen
before glass when i was a potter i had the idea of making an urn and setting it aside for the inevitable. i would then have another potter make a bone ash glaze out of me. i would be on the urn rather than in it. no spills and it would be a good way to lock up the toxic components of our ashes. Kooky idea?

Blog Swim with the fishies
Take a look in the Blog section...There's a little ditty on Sea Urns. Actually quite striking for an Urn... I still rather be buried w/o a coffin.

There's another, much tidier...
There's another, much tidier way to go that hasn't caught on in the West, wherein your remains are frozen with dry ice and then essentially shattered like glass into a fine dust via powerful sonic frequencies. What's left over goes toward fertilizing some trees.
Much less gruesome than incineration or embalming, and friendly to the environment.
Now if you could only be assured that the wood from the trees one day would be used for some great piece of design or acoustic instruments, this would be ideal.

finch
you remind me that the incineration process releases many toxins. perhaps my idea is not so sound after all. But as with using municipal sewage sludge for fertilizer, the human body may be too contaminated to use as fertilizer either.

SOYLENT GREEN?
.

Considering the simple.....
fact that one has limited experience of what happens to the remains after death, I do not mind any freezing, burning, laser cutting, electro discharge erosion or whatever the human spirit can come up with. My concern is the scenario of emotions that inevitably come with the "ritual", and the emotional link we keep with the objects that were part of that ritual. The remains of both my parents were reduced to ashes and dispersed on a green lawn in the local cimetary. In both cases it was a fresh, sunny but windy day and in both cases part of the ashes were taken up by the breeze and disappeared while mixing with the cool air. Although I love the Swedisch west coast were the pictures on the blog were taken, as a meningfull memory I prefer that breeze over the well designed shell disappearing in the water. Somehow I also see some kind of interesting tradition in keeping the empty urn...for the next generation.

Ah, recycled urns...
now we're talking efficiency. 🙂
Of course the obvious design solution to all this is genetic engineering that stops aging and keeps us all alive forever. Dying is such a waste of societal investment in so many ways. 🙂
On the other hand, death seems often a welcome relief from the continued indolence of much central bank, corporate and political policy and leadership.

perhaps
dear koen this does bring back the ash glaze as a nicely sentimental way for you to "watch over" future generations.