Learning To Love You More
HELLO ASSIGNMENTS DISPLAYS LOVE GRANTS REPORTS SELECTIONS OLIVERS BOOK

 ASSIGNMENTS:

 

 

Assignment #51
Describe what to do with your body when you die.

Kate Zidar
Brooklyn, New York USA

REPORTS:

PREVIOUS NEXT

  
Graveyards pollute the soil and groundwater, plus we are out of space for new ones.
Cremation is an option, but its just creepy and im sure we have enough smog.
SO, when I die:
1. do NOT chemically preserve me in any way.
2. do NOT make a shiny varnished box out of a perfectly good tree for me
3. DO the following:
harvest any useful organs, including corneas
make some violin string out of my vicera and play a concert in the abandoned McCarren Park pool JS Bach Ich Habe Genug would be appropriate
desiccate the rest me for several weeks to remove some of my fluids. be creative here maybe you can make a giant food dehydrator and beef jerky maker for me a la ron popeil. if you go this route, contact my brother who can work with you on a patent. alternatively, you can contact the folks at Peter Luger s as hear they age their own meats and have a dry room.
when I am sufficiently dry, run me through a wood chipper and make a slurry out of me.
activate my slurry with a little compost starter and put me in a closed vessel for a few weeks. you might want to also add other kinds of organic matter saw dust, garden clippings, food scraps, fallen leaves to round out the batch. get in touch with the Lower East Side Ecology Center for advice on compost recipes and in-vessel system designs.
after a few weeks, place my slurry now partially finished compost into an open bin with several pounds lets say 20lb -- of red wiggler worms. the worms should finish the job within one or two months.
when I am done, screen me and bag me into one pound bags.
distribute me to my friends and family
use any extra of me to feed the scraggly little street trees on my block in Greenpoint, Brooklyn
I know that this process sounds a little gross, but believe me, ive really given it some thought and I think its best for all of us.