Caitlin Doughty (our favorite mortician) has just uploaded a new video on YouTube. Check it out!

Corpse Poo

-- Nephele

I think this is the best youtube series ever.

Well, move over Jenna Marbles, you're outta here!

And....I don't see any rings on her ring finger....(ahem).


Thanks, Neph!

Yeah, she is awesome! I love her sense of humor, and there seems to be no question that she won't answer.

Ohh, I love her! She is so blunt and awesome!

Okay, 10 goth points to the person who knows what the difference is between a coffin and a casket.

Yes, there is a distinct difference between a coffin and a casket.

I didn't know this, but I found out from Caitlin Doughty's latest "Ask a Mortician" video:

"Exploding Caskets"

And, yes! They CAN explode!

-- Nephele

If they're the really air tight ones that can explode, they can also pop out of the ground poltergeist style during severe flooding.

Picture related.

Vaults aren't really supposed to stop this, and can actually make it worse if they too are the ones that seal air-tight [since that just creates another pocket of gases to become buoyant].

There was a really cool picture of this from one of the major 90s hurricanes that I saw in the paper when it happened. The hurricane caused flooding on a river that a cemetery was on. Dozens of caskets popped out of the ground, traveled downstream and ended up circling a house that was on a hill [that had become an island in the flood]. When the flood waters receded there was a perfect ring of caskets all around the house.

Wouldn't want the job of hauling them back to the cemetery after that. A 20 year old casket might still have enough gases in it to pop out of the ground, but that doesn't mean the rusty shell won't develop a crack while being thrown around a flooded river for a few days. I can just picture "coffin liquor" [the thick black bog she talked about in her newest video] being mixed with muddy flood water to create a molasses pudding epoxy that'll coat anything it touches. Not to mention that hurricanes usually happen in the summer, and usually in the south. So the sunlight would be heating it up every day it sits there and making it evolve into something all the worse before someone gets around to hauling it back. The vile smells would use their newly evolved legs to walk up your nose and kick you in the brain [or so I would guess]. It would rank worse than being tasked with cleaning highway restrooms.

Caskets are generally larger and have hinged lids, whereas coffins have removable lids? I honestly have no idea

I did just that, and from now on I shall be watching the rest with interest.

Caitlin has uploaded a new "Ask a Mortician" video:

"Grief Talk"

The segment on "Shit People Say to Grieving People That is Wrong" is priceless.

-- Nephele

This thread should just serve as the not-at-all official Ask A Mortician fan club of Goth Net.

I had to find these videos late at night in a dark room, didn't I?

Caitlin has put up a new video, in which one learns about a new method of corpse disposal called alkaline hydrolysis, a.k.a. liquid cremation -- "a greener type of cremation."

Ask a Mortician: Liquefying Bodies

To quote Caitlin Doughty, Mortician and "Corpse Libertarian": "Seriously, corpse regulation is ridiculous, and I don't know if I would choose alkaline hydrolysis for my own corpse, but we should be able to have open-air pyres. We should be able to leave our bodies out to be eaten by animals. We should be able to bury them in the backyard. Yes, there should be regulation, but when it comes to corpses, I am a corpse libertarian."

-- Nephele

Liquification to the masses!

It's nice to hear somene talk about death without any religious or superstitious beliefs attatched. In a way it's...comforting.