Hello Again Deathlings,
We're back with another episode of Death in the Afternoon, Season 2. This week's episode: The Least Worst Death.
Two Manhattan tragedies, two miles and ninety years apart, that changed government policy forever. But the victims couldn't afford to step back and take this long hi...
2019-03-27 18:01:51 +0000 UTC View Post
Greetings Deathlings,
It's a good day for a brand new, hot off the presses article on The Order site!
"Inventing Farewell: Poetry as a Mortuary Practice" examines when author and professor David Sherman created a class for his students to forge and reinvent their relationship with the dead.
These students were brave.&n...
2019-03-26 18:54:17 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello Deathlings,
We meet again for another video combining research, travel, and a whole lotta stuff they don't teach you on high school !
This week we're talking about the Donner Party. Just saying the name "Donner" conjures up so many images in our collective imagination: snow covered wagons, frozen pioneers, ground chuck that might have come from, well, Chuck.
Learning about the Donner Party is truly like reading one of those "Choose Your Own Adventure"...
2019-03-23 14:31:06 +0000 UTC View Post
Ding-dong! Death calling...
Our new article this week on The Order website is Colonial New York's Door-to-Door Messenger of Death .
Dressed all in black, from his dark knee-breeches and long cloak to a three-cornered hat adorned with black crape streamers, the aanspreker carried one message: someone was dead.
2019-03-19 22:00:01 +0000 UTC
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Your death gals are back!
Welcome to the first episode of Death in the Afternoon, Season 2: Fantastic Funerary Failures.
Cremation and burial are all well and good, but why aren't our dead bodies electroplated or cemented? In our first episode of Death in the Afternoon– Season Two, we're talking about the ridiculous funerary innovations that succeeded (see: the death-defying green parks of Hollywood) and the ridiculous funerary innovations that... didn't ...
Greetings Deathlings,
Welcome to this very special episode of Ask a Mortician where Caitlin Asks a Mortician!
OK, seriously, are you not impressed by Monica? Your girl is highly skilled, passionate about her work, and knows her way around a skull like nobody's business. We bow before your blue-gloved hand, queen.
I love videos where I get to learn on the job. For the record, I'm not just pretending to fumble with the hair dye (sorry Debbie) or play dumb ...
2019-03-02 15:27:02 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello Deathling Darlings!
How is February treating you?
Don't worry, I won't bore you with MORE Patreon pledge talk, I just want to take a second to say a quick THANK YOU to all our Patrons old and new. You gave Sarah, Louise, and me LIFE in the form of DEATH this month.
Anyway, back to the CONTENT. We have a new article on The Order website this week!
I can't tell you how thrilled we are to release this video. Trust that every single member of Team Death Video poured themselves into this one like natron salt into an Egyptian mummy's abdomen.
But it was worth it, deathlings. This was one of those videos that definitely started in one place, with a simple question about old mummies, and ended in another with big questions and SELF REFLECTION.
There was also a road trip in there, too.
I also want to thank everyon...
2019-02-17 18:05:25 +0000 UTC View Post
Greetings Deathlings,
It's our first article of the year!
If you're not already a fan of AJ Hawkins' work, this piece just might take you over the edge. You're welcome.
To fill you in on more details, here's our editor, Sarah Chavez:
This week we’re excited to share our first piece of 2019...
2019-02-12 18:05:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Welcome back deathlings!
It was a long DARK January, but here we are, rising like a vulture from the carcass of a phoenix... or something.
We at the Order of the Good Death have been busy busy busy since the end of 2018 and we can't wait to unveil the fruits of our labor.
Take a look around at our Patreon page – things look a little different, eh?
Check out those new...
2019-02-02 15:59:24 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello Out There!
How's it going with you in this month of DARKNESS? What are you reading and watching in 2019, WITHOUT ME? Anything noteworthy? I still have two weeks without social media I need your best of January 2019 picks.
We are hard at work at the Order, creating all the content and laying all the plans, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't wake up on Friday mornings panicked that I HAVEN'T POSTED THE VIDEO YET. It's weird. But it's good weird.
If you reall...
2019-01-14 23:36:09 +0000 UTC View PostFor the entire month of January 2019, The Order of the Good Death and the Ask a Mortician channel will be “going dark.” What does “going dark” mean?
No new content in the month of January! No new videos, blogs, social media, or podcasts.
Will I still be able to watch my favorite Ask a Mortician videos on YouTube? Will the Order website still be live?
Yes and yes. The channel will still be there (binge away deathlings!) and the Order ...
2018-12-23 17:44:35 +0000 UTC View Post
Greetings from Hawaii, deathlings! I’m at the ol’ Doughty homestead.
Real talk: I was gross this past week. Our Lady of Perpetual Snot. I really tried to film this video last weekend, but my body and mucus membranes were having none of it. It’s probably for the best. Appearing on camera in the state I was in would have led to numerous comments asking, “How did y’all prop up Caitlin’s cadaver and get her to talk so good?”
So thank you, gentle patrons, for you pa...
2018-12-23 17:41:55 +0000 UTC View Post
We're serious, deathlings. Tell us your thoughts. Ask us your questions. Your opinion matters to our dark, desiccated hearts!
Ambitiously,
Caitlin & the Death Video Team
Can we all take a moment to admire the ART Landis created for this video's thumbnail? There's something so perfectly Americana about retro Tupperware and sealed caskets.
This week's video is the kind of video that really gets my blood pumping. I love a good ground level, FOR THE PEOPLE, mythbusting episode. While videos like this don't necessarily win me any popularity contests in the funeral industry, I really feel like we're doing Thanatos' work when we get the chance to poten...
2018-12-14 17:49:58 +0000 UTC View Post
Well my frequent flyer punch card is looking mighty healthy, how's yours doing? (For those of you who don't do the frequent flyer danse macabre or who aren't my mom, they don't actually use punch cards for your mileage, BUT THEY SHOULD.)
A few short weeks ago I was in Brooklyn, New York working on this video with our friends at Atlas Obscura. I got to wander around Most Holy Trinity Cemetery with Atlas Obscura's fancy pants team and equipment (anything that's not my iPhone is "fancy" when I'm ...
2018-12-07 18:12:58 +0000 UTC View Post
This was one of the toughest videos that we've worked on in a while. Hiroshima was a cavalcade of horrors: this horrible thing happened, then this horrible thing happened, then – oh wait! – things get even MORE horrible, and then...and then...
From the research to the writing to the filming to the endless editing, this was definitely not one of those light-hearted, "chock-full-of-bloopers" video shoots. And you all know how I love a good blooper.
We worked on this video fo...
2018-11-30 17:35:14 +0000 UTC View Post
I am stoked about the holidays. After this bonkers year of videos, going on book tour, working on another book, Death Salon, and planning for next year, this gal is ready to hunker down with all the food and shovel it in without interruption.
Now granted I'm lucky, I've long since trained my family to ixnay the death phobic alktay. It wasn't easy, but I mean, you can't really ask me to NOT talk about death. What am I supposed to say when Aunt Kathy asks, "So what have you been up to?" or...
2018-11-16 18:33:11 +0000 UTC View Post
Ok, this is not everyone's definition of "living the dream." I get that. Maybe "dying the dream?"
This video we got tons of advice and input from my friend Nora Menkin and Amber our Undertaking LA funeral director about what they would do for a family that had these requests. Of course, keep in mind that these are two hyper progressive funeral directors in Seattle and LA. And I, of course, am a sucker for letting the family do whatever they want with the body.
So ...
2018-11-09 18:09:58 +0000 UTC View Post
I love when our thumbnails enter surrealist territory. There is no better video than this one (the maybe true, maybe legend) story of the medicinal honey mummy. Corpse honey for whatever ails you!
Here's the thing, I don't think the story in this video is far-fetched at all. We know how often corpses were used as medicine (we've done previous videos on that) and how often corpses were preserved in honey. As the meme goes: Why not both? Two great corpse tropes together at last...
2018-11-02 17:08:36 +0000 UTC View Post
It's almost Halloween, you know what that means. SPOOKY VIDEO. Just like last year, I happen to be in the Northeast at leaf falling spooky-time season. (I'm from Hawai'i, so everything in New England and upstate New York seems delightfully evile and full of witches.)
Sarah Chavez, death folklore expert, helped me with the research on this video. I learned a lot, to be honest. Guytrash Gurt Dog anyone? I'm taking applications for a new familiar for #spookyseason.
I'm filming s...
2018-10-26 16:52:41 +0000 UTC View Post
Depressing, perhaps. But NECESSARY. You have been asking for us to talk about Saartjie Baartman for quite awhile. We waited because the Iconic Corpse series tends to have a whimsical edge, and Baartman's story is.... not whimsical. Not even sorta whimsical. But it is fascinating, historically important, and something people should be aware of.
I'm on a plane as I write this, heading from Salt Lake City to Madison. I spent 4 days at the National Funeral Directors Convention an...
2018-10-19 19:03:48 +0000 UTC View Post
We had a Death Salon at the historic Mount Auburn Cemetery. What's a Death Salon? Well watch the darn video and find out! (I didn't mean to yell at you like that is was uneccesary and I apologize....also, do you think I'll ever learn how to spell unnecessary? TWO N'S TWO S's.... maybe if I write it down like that I'll remember next time. We can do it together. TWO N'S TWO S's. All other letters are.... unnecessary.)
Do I seem a little loopy? Well, I am on book tour. Com...
2018-10-12 16:06:34 +0000 UTC View Post
I love this kind of episode. It's wonderful to do historically dense tales of death and woe, but it's harder to get weird while doing them. And we all know that I love to get weird.
*cackle*
I talk about my book tour in the episode, I hope some of you can come see me! Except for two large conferences, everything is free. http://caitlindoughty.com/events
Also! Here is a very e...
2018-10-05 17:00:40 +0000 UTC View Post
Someone just posted that I'm losing "faithful subribers" for this "political rant." NOT MY SUBRIBERS!
We've been working on this video for months, and are happy to have it out. It's a very partisan time right now, especially if you live in America. So let's gather around an issue where all parties have done terrible things, shall we? Sigh.
I knew people died crossing the southern border into the US, but I didn't understand that extent, the number of deaths, and WHY so m...
2018-09-28 16:12:32 +0000 UTC View Post
Oh damn I'm so proud of the title of this post.
This video was all ready to do up at it's usual time on Friday morning and you know what happened? NOTHING. I 100% forgot about it. I haven't forgotten to release a video in.... ever, I think?
I was in Toronto for a talk yesterday, so I was thrown off schedule wise, but I travel all the time, no excuse! By the time Louise and Sarah started texting me like "uuumm, where's the video?" it was late afternoon Toronto time and I was s...
2018-09-22 20:41:38 +0000 UTC View Post
One of the things I learned from traveling around looking at different death customs is just how differently we DO cemeteries. The English speaking world (especially America, yeah I'm looking at you) has such an obsession with letting a body rest in the same grave forever and ever. Even when the family wants the body exhumed it often ends up being a long, bureaucratic legal battle.
Today's video is about what goes into an exhumation of a body, and why you would exhume a body. ...
2018-09-14 16:41:50 +0000 UTC View Post
Listen, some people are lucky enough to grow up down the road from the part wax embalmed body of Ferdinand Marcos and some aren't ok? That's just the way things are. #blessed
Seriously though, I grew up hearing about Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos all the time, but since I was 5 years old, didn't really know WHY. This episode of Iconic Corpse let me dive into my own history and perceptions of Ferdinand Marcos and all the bonkers things that happened to his body.
Bonus More Caitl...
2018-09-07 17:41:14 +0000 UTC View Post
Ok, it's Friday. CAITLIN- WHY DIDN'T YOU POST A VIDEO?
Well I did post a video on YouTube this morning (this one!- with doula and amazing death positive woman Alua Arthur). We tried a bunch of new things with filming this, I hope you like it.
BUT- I couldn't post to Patreon because I've been recording the new podcast aaAAAaaaAAAllll daaaayyy today. And we'll be recording all day tomorrow and some on Sunday. I feel like I've been hit with a damn truck. People who do two podcas...
2018-09-01 05:25:48 +0000 UTC View Post
Whose heart do you want preserved in a metal box and laid a'top you in your grave? Or, counterpoint, where do you want your preserved heart kept for eternity? Lover's grave? Lover's desk drawer? Local fast food restaurant?
Well... welcome to the wonderful world of heart burial. We didn't even have enough space to truly dive into organ burial and had to focus on hearts. The past truly is magic.
Also, as promised, HUGE announcement time. Today we announced we are LAUNCHIN...
2018-08-24 16:33:38 +0000 UTC View Post