European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - September 24, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse Mourners who slopped by alter a funeral tourists who have stumbled upon it and students from local High schools or Community colleges a lot of limes people siding Here will see the museum and Well open it Lor them. It answers a lot of questions said Sieve Plescia grief Counselor at Hunter s. Learning funeral history is a Good Way to Brace Lor the Mure said Roberta Halporn. Director of the new York City based Center Lorthan apology research and education a non profit group that studies dying death and grieving. This is a death denying culture. So when it happens he pain is almost double. People Wilhour experience tend to wan to eliminate everything no funeral but each part of the ritual has significance she said. When these rituals Are established and practice it starts the bereavement process going in a healthy Way Halporn said. South Florida career guidance teacher Kay Anderson agrees. She has taken Pipor High school slide nos considering Allied health careers on Lipold trips to Hunter s Lor years. As weird As it sounds it really is a Good learning experience. Part of managing a career is understanding death. It s a Good thing because kids at this age have no experience Wilh death she says. For Hunter Iho museum reflects the changes in american culture. The Way funerals changed mirrors the Way families at the turn of the Century funerals were still family reunions. Morticians visited Homes to prepare the body often Laid Oul in Parlours and built Reade to measure coffins on the Day of the funeral he would come again with his Colin and put the body in it and go to the Church Hunter said. As people moved to cities wakes moved out of houses and funeral Homes were born. Collins used to be tapered on the ends and their inner Metal liners were soldered. They Are no longer tapered and now have self sealing rubber gaskets. During the victorian Era wreaths were fashioned irom hair generally that of the deceased and a family might weave a huge Multi hued Wreath Over several generations. Hearses once regularly doubted As ambulances a practice that ended with regulations that ambulances be painted White. That was hardly appropriate Lor a funeral vehicle. Hunter said stroking his gleaming Black Model to which won Lisl prize As an ambulance at the antique automotive club of America s 1933 show. Not All Industry innovations caught on like the solid Glass casket on display. You take the 1,500 pounds and add another 175 pounds and we put that in a Model to Hearse and you be just flattened the tires Hunter said. It s like one giant Coke other funeral museums around the Nalion include a Small display owned by . Beggs and sons funeral Home of Madison near Tallahassee and a travelling museum run by the Illinois funeral director s association of Springfield. Hunter s museum also houses a collection of 1900-Era Anatomy books for student morticians yellowing funeral Bills and Complete issues of the Trade journal the casket dating Back to 1892. Hunter sees Industry changes ahead such As More cremations people paying Lor funerals in Advance and the terminally 111 opting to die in their own Beds instead of in hospitals. The death Patlon is changing he said. We go to Homes More often than we did five years Erm Bombeck it s a Norman Rockwell moment. Mother enters the dining room carrying a flickering birthday cake steaming thanksgiving Turkey flaming Christmas pudding fill in your own occasion to a wailing table. The room is filled with squeals of Delight groans of anticipation and dieters who Are about to sin. A voice Shouls Don l anyone move until 1 get my it s like someone climbing up the Pofe in tires Square on new year s eve and slapping the falling Ball from heralding the new year. The momentum is gone ii leaves with my husband who tears out of the dining room in search of his camera i dump the food on the table and sink into a chair. Forks that were fixed like bayonets ready to attack Are returned to the prone position. A Tew diners excuse themselves to use the phone or do errands. We know what s coming. We be been there before. For the next 20 or 30 minutes my husband will hop from room to room trying to remember where he left his tripod he will reappear to ask who put the ice Cream in the Freezer on top of his stared my. He then will pol everyone in the room to see if they notice a Flash when he trips the shutter eventually he will Herd the diners around a torched cake cold Lurkey incinerated Chris Imas pudding till in your own disaster while he fiddles with his Light meter. " i cannot begin to Tell you the dinners that have been ruined in the name of Kodak what i fail to understand is Why holidays Are such a Shock to Amateur photographers. A used to talk about halloween for three weeks. He knew it was going to happen but it was t until he watched me put the kids into costumes that turned into steam Baths and masks that made their vision impossible and breathing shallow that he said hold it i want to get a picture of keep thinking he d have been a real Gem taking pictures for life Magazine. Can t you see him recording the birth of a Panda the animal would be 3 years old before he adjusted his focus and i can just hear him telling a missile Cruiser commander. We re Gonna have to do that again sir i had my Lens Cap the Saddest part of this whole exercise is that to have maybe a dozen albums of she Bombeck Al Christmas thanksgiving birthdays anniversaries picnics and reunions. There in t a single picture where anyone is smiling. It s september or Ansel Adams. Gel your act together e 15bs Efima Bumbeck anew grown up took in comic books Batman year taking comic books seriously by Edwin Mcdowell new York times Arner books one of the biggest commercial publishers in the United slates celebrated the official publication Date recently of Salman year one a 96 Page color comic Book about a neurotic superhero who is a successor to the original caped crusader. This event followed the Success of the i9bb Batman Book the dark Knight returns which has sold 85,000 copies. And this a Warner has High Hopes for brought to Light a 72-Page comic it is issuing about the Iran Contra affair no less. An academic publisher the University of California press has also discovered that comics Are not just or kids. It is already on its third printing of a 313-Page comic Book Japan inc. About the japanese Economy. The Story is told through the adventures of a fictitious trading company coping with floating Exchange Rales and protectionist american Auto workers who Lake sledgehammers to a japanese car. The comic Book which appeared in late june has 32,500 copies in print in Iho United states and 600,000 in Japan where it was published in 1986. Whether the publishers Call them comic books Japan in graphic novels the Batman series or graphic docudrama brought to Light. Illustrated books for adolescents and adults have been steadily making their Way into bookstores. They Are now considered important enough to have prompted a panel discussion at the annual convention of the american booksellers association in May. Thai recognition has conferred some legitimacy on lha comic Book which has been looked Down on in Iho United slates said Peter Duma a professor of history at Stanford. University who wrote the introduction to Japan inc. When comic books first became institutionalized in this country hey were directed toward children and that remained their image he said. There have been earlier illustrated books for adults among them shakespearean dramas and primers on Marx and Keynes Bui it was the critical and commercial Success of Art Spie Elmart s 1986 maus a Book about the holocaust that depicted the jews As mice and the nazis As cats thai established the genre As a serious presence in american bookstores. 8y treating so grim a subject so effectively in a comic Book format maus almost blurred the line Between adult books and comic books. Published by pantheon it has sold More than 100,000 copies and was nominated for a National Book critics Circle award. Some critics and Book publishers say graphic novels will accelerate a publishing trend they already deplore using Lashy covers to sell books to readers weaned on television and video games. These critics believe Iho graphic novel like the jackets can minimize or disguise any ill Arary meaning. But the publishers of the comic books defend them. Some critics say graphic novels Are aimed at your mtg audience said Ling Lucas an associate publisher at Warner books. There s some Rulh to that but it is really just another Way to gel people to read especially a subject hat younger people normally consider dry like politics. But a picture is almost like a documentary and to compress it into panels of Art work lakes great Talent despite their growing acceptance graphic novels still face major handicaps. With shelf space already Al a Premium few booksellers Are willing or Able to allot them a special Section As they do Lor mysteries or cookbooks. And the Talent to write a id illustrate comics is thought to be in Short Supply. You can probably count on one hand the really Good writers and artists for graphic novels Lucas said. The controversy in the United Stales Over graphic novels would Puzzle Many foreigners. Adult comic books Are enormously popular in France and Mexico for example and it is not uncommon for brazilian attorneys schoolteachers and business people to unwind with comic books. An Cost imaged one third of All the books and magazines sold in Japan each year Are comic books Many of them erotic and violent in nature Here comic books Are usually. Considered to be for somebody not yet intellectually mature or someone who Wilt never be Ilelle Lually mature Duus said. But in Japan Lor example there is a Long tradition of graphic novels dating Back to the 18th Century. It s not the same As the grand literary tradition bul it is a legitimate kind of saturday september 24, 1988 the stars and stripes Page 17
