Kalliope's Korner
Kalliope's Korner
Eternity Unboxed: Ditching the Traditional for the Eccentric
Ready to venture off the beaten path of the afterlife? Hold on tight as we explore unconventional, eccentric, and downright bizarre alternatives to traditional coffins and urns. With my funeral home owner guest down with COVID, it's just you and me on this wild and spooky ride. From being pressed into a vinyl record to biodegradable urns and space burials, I’ll reveal the strange and wonderful ways people are choosing to spend their afterlife. Brace yourself for a rollercoaster of emotions, from hilariously absurd to thought-provoking.
Fasten your seatbelts as we navigate tree burials (and their potential mishaps), alien encounters in space burials, and diamond transformations. Each has its own pros, cons, and my personal takes on them. We’ll discuss the ecological brilliance of reef burials and the haunting beauty of glass transformations. But be warned: not all that glitters is gold – or a diamond, for that matter. Join us for a lively, unconventional, and definitely weird conversation about celebrating life, even in the afterlife.
Greetings and salutations. How you doing this is Kaliope's Corner. I'm your host, kaliope, and I gotta tell you right now I'm a little stressed out. I'm not good at this introduction. Welcome. Okay. I'm like Hello, welcome to Kaliope's Corner. I'm your host, kaliope, and then I tried to do it where I'm like I hope they. But then people like what the fuck is this? I don't like it. I sound like Pat Stajak or some shit. So I'm going to work on it. For now you get the greetings and the salutations, because I really like Charlotte's Web and I'm feeling it right now.
Speaker 1:Anyway, this particular podcast I wanted to do for the past week because we're in the season. It's the spooky shit, it's the weird shit, the dead stuff, and my guest had COVID. Now he owns a funeral home in my neighborhood and he's got like a little off shoot in the next town over and a ribbon talking about this, the the shit people are doing in their afterlife or how they want to spend their afterlife, and I gotta tell you, forget coffins and urns. Okay, you'd like newly departed or doing like some. I don't know if the upgrades are just completely fucked up, shit. Okay, I think I think my favorite is becoming a record. Okay, like an actual vinyl record and, interestingly, the company that I did the research on was called Vinyl Like, finally, haha, anyway, they press your ashes into a vinyl record so you finally like that fucking rock store that you always wanted to be. You can say you got like your, your record or whatever. Okay, but they could do your voice, they could put your fucking will on it, they could make a playlist.
Speaker 1:If it were me, I definitely would have staying alive, like every other track. But they also will let your body just make the noise and if you know anything about vinyl records, they have that like static e sound and now and then it'll like there was skippy thing or whatever, and your body could make this sound. I definitely do not want to imagine what my body would sound like. I think I'm just going to stick with this thing alive, but I definitely, definitely think that this is probably the coolest option that you have. Now there's also this thing that's a very big deal and I know people are actually doing it right now where they put you your remains, the ashes you're in a biodegradable urn. Okay, sounds great, right, you know, they pull a seed in there, they plant that shit and however long it takes for a tree to grow, boom, they are.
Speaker 1:It's extremely like wine king circle of life ah, it's a bony or whatever, until you realize that dogs piss on trees. Dogs love to piss on trees, so they. You spend then your whole fucking after life being pissed on, okay? Or? Or, if you know me, you know that as long as I can remember what my kids, this Saturday after Thanksgiving, we go out to Lewin's. I got the food, I got the music, I got all the kids that come in from all over the place, we got the wig and with toe and shit, we're going to cut down the tray. Go and get the tray. You don't say it like that, it doesn't count.
Speaker 1:And there you are, you're enjoying your afterlife, and the next thing, you know, you got me standing there with a sore going. I resist the tree, I resist the tree. No, no, and I think the reality is no, no, I don't wanna be somebody else's Christmas tree. Okay, like, if my kid could take it and it would be like a permanent fucking tree, then yeah, I'm good and it'll work. But no, the tree thing's not for me. The tree is not for me. They also are doing. And he could explain it so much better than me. I'm a little upset that I don't have me, but that's okay. You know, you gotta give somebody COVID.
Speaker 1:They got these two extremes. Okay, you got space burials, like you know that ET shit. And then you got reef burials like or EEF. Okay, here's the thing. I don't want my ashes in space. Okay, I definitely do not wanna imagine like some fucked up aliens like rolling me and smoking me, or even being worse, and being like oh, this is a human, we do not like humans. And then they're like flushing me somewhere and like the alien toilet bowl is some shit. Now, I'm good. Could you imagine like ET sitting there drinking those little space latte, and then, boom, you know he's sitting here with my fuck. No, it's just, it's not working. I don't wanna be his croissant, or nothing like that.
Speaker 1:The reef bowls this it's interesting. They take your ashes, they combine you with concrete, right, they make an artificial reef and you get dropped into the ocean. Brilliant, ecologically speaking. The only thing I can imagine, though, is fucking Ariel sitting here going. You wanna stick up my bobs. I got Pellele, and she's like decorating a fucking house with me, and here I am like little mermaid interior decorations. It's not happening. I don't feel it.
Speaker 1:You have the classic diamond transformation where they take your ashes and they press it into diamonds and I could get behind this if I know for a fact that my kids are gonna take like the diamond mate and get engaged with that. Because I'll tell you right now, I don't like the way little Sally Homemaker's treating my son. Guess what A finger's gonna like. Fall off is something I'm gonna want the shit out of a finger of my husband. He wants to get like we met. No, that's not happening. He's gonna be with me, so forget. I even said that. But if I could have like a little spirit control over those diamonds, I'm all about it. I will fucking bedazzle my entire family with that shit. So of course then you got like the glasses. You could get Like your dust colored or your ashes colored into some like Art Deco glass looking thing or some shit like that. But that's the gist of it. Those are the things we were gonna talk about.
Speaker 1:I know it's so short and quick when I don't have somebody to talk to and I gotta tell you the things that I'm talking about. They sound really fucking crazy. But I'm scared of coffins. I'm close to fullback. I definitely do not wanna be like burning If that were the case, I would just like opt for hell or something but if it could give somebody like a way to handle the passing of someone or some kind of special remembrance. It's all about celebrating life and having a good time, especially in the afterlife. So I'm all about it. Let's get to this. After party I wanna thank you for listening to my little insane rant. Again. I don't know how to even say goodbye, so I wanna like think of something catchy and, you know, hooky to say but I got nothing. So until next time it's me, goliope. I got nothing to ruin with that, so I will talk to you soon.