HST, Philosophy, and the beau idéal

[Zeno]

Hunter Thomspon is having his ashes blown out of a cannon. Last Hurrah (http://www.comcast.net/entertainment/index.jsp?cat=ENTERTAINMENT&fn=/2005/07/11/175881.html)

From the Article:



ASPEN, Colo. - Friends and family of gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson are preparing to pepper the sky with the late writer's ashes. His cremated remains will be shot into the air Aug. 20 from a cannon installed on a 150-foot-high tower behind his home in Woody Creek.

The 67-year-old Thompson, who had been in failing health, shot himself at his home on Feb. 20 after a long and flamboyant career.

Johnny Depp, a close friend of Thompson's, has hired a Beverly Hills, Calif., events planner to oversee the event, which will be closed to the public.

"Hunter meant a lot to me. He was another hero and someone that I got to know very well because I played him in `Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.' We got very, very close," Depp said in a recent interview with AP Television News.

"He was a great pal, one of my best friends. We had talked a couple of times about his last wishes to be shot out of a cannon of his own design. ... All I'm doing is trying to make sure his last wish comes true. I just want to send my pal out the way he wants to go out," the 42-year-old actor said in the interview.

Anita Thompson, the writer's widow, said a public commemoration of Thompson will be held later.

************************************************** ******

A worthy subject to discuss, especially in a philosophy forum. So get started. Just to say one thing right off, it's a great stunt - among other things.

Le Misanthrope

[drudman]

I have instructed my family to, upon my death, dispose of my body in the cheapest and most convenient method. I presume that this will be to just straight up give me to a med school. Elaborate and costly last wishes are nonsensical.

[ThreeMartini]

Having spent my time in gross anatomy dissecting cadavers I respect your decision to donate your body to 'science'.

Respect is certainly paid to you for your future and hopefully longtime coming donation.

That being said, I would never donate my corpse to some first year medical students to butcher.

[Zeno]

[ QUOTE ]
Elaborate and costly last wishes are nonsensical.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why?

I have a copy of my parents will and they both wish to be cremated. I assume the body burners will ask me, since I'm the executor of the estate, what to do with the ashes. An interesting question that I ponder on occasion. I have yet to make any firm decision.

H.L. Mencken relates an amusing day he spent with Ambrose Bierce when they both attend the cremation service for a literary critic. Bierce suggested to Mencken that the ashes of the critic be molded into bullets and shot at publishers. If you do not see the overall wisdom and good sense in this suggestion then you have let too much philosophy rob you of what makes life worthwhile.

-Zeno

[drudman]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Elaborate and costly last wishes are nonsensical.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why?

I have a copy of my parents will and they both wish to be cremated. I assume the body burners will ask me, since I'm the executor of the estate, what to do with the ashes. An interesting question that I ponder on occasion. I have yet to make any firm decision.

H.L. Mencken relates an amusing day he spent with Ambrose Bierce when they both attend the cremation service for a literary critic. Bierce suggested to Mencken that the ashes of the critic be molded into bullets and shot at publishers. If you do not see the overall wisdom and good sense in this suggestion then you have let too much philosophy rob you of what makes life worthwhile.

-Zeno

[/ QUOTE ]

You have made my point for me.

Live life to the fullest until it ends.

There can be nothing more worthwhile than that.

[Cyrus]

[ QUOTE ]
I would never donate my corpse to some first year medical students to butcher.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why not?

You realize that, after you die, your corpse is as relevant to your extinct consciousness/being as a dead lizard in Paraguay, don't you?

[kpux]

I don't see what's open for discussion. If this is what he wanted, then I think doing anything else would be wrong.

[Cyrus]

I liked Dr Gonzo's demented writing a lot. And I like the idea of that loose cannon of a writer getting his last hurrah out of a cannon!

But G. B. Trudeau was merciless (and pretty much accurate) in his portrait (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0740715542/qid=1121153641/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/002-0990305-1400820?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) of Uncle Duke.

http://www.drage.demon.co.uk/tim/toys/images/dukedoll.jpg

[drudman]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't see what's open for discussion. If this is what he wanted, then I think doing anything else would be wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]

He wanted it. He no longer does.

[Zeno]

You missed it. Elaborate and costly last wishes ARE part of what makes life worthwhile. And you can enjoy them in anticipation, if not in actual fact. HST enjoyed having his ashes being shot out of a cannon, a million times. It hasn't happened yet but HST’s planning the act and musing about it certainly helped him in living to the fullest and most worthwhile. So you see it is not nonsensical.

Let's say, just for amusement, that I have the resources and legal means to make a number of last wishes, for example:

Having 100 cow’s asses tattooed with 'Moses was an Egyptian" and then set lose to room the crags about Mt Sinai before having them paraded, 50 in front and 50 in back, of my coffin which is being carried on the shoulders of a bevy of beautiful semi-nude Las Vegas Show Girls that march my frozen corpse about the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights while 69 midgets blow on trumpets and then my frozen head is cut from my corpse, placed in a giant handmade slingshot and lofted over the mountain while fireworks burst in the sky, and then all the cows are sacrificed and burned to the God Osiris, along with my headless body, on a giant funeral pyre while the Show Girls and Midgets read aloud from the Tibet book of the Dead.

There is nothing nonsensical about any of the above. I have noted with bemused detachment your frequent posts teetering about on the margins of sanity and reasonableness, like some drunken sybarite with good intentions. Someday you will wise up, I hope.

-Zeno

[drudman]

Your condescending air is amusing to me.

Allow me to make myself perfectly clear:

A dead body does not enjoy being chot out of a cannon. It does not enjoy being burnt in an oven. Or put on a boat and set fire to. Or being embalmed and wrapped in gauze, or being buried with their beloved dog, or being sent into the mists of Avalon by Sir Bedevere. Anything that happens in the world after you are dead, has no worth.

That being said, I do not wish to burden my family with an expensive and elaborate last request. There is great worth for me to know that my demise will not be a financial burden on my living kin.

If a person is selfish enough to wish to incur the inconvenience or cost upon those who survive him that an elaborate final request may present, so be it. That person, to me, has a distorted view of that which is worthwhile.

[daryn]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In risposta di:</font><hr />
Anything that happens in the world after you are dead, has no worth.

[/ QUOTE ]

how do you know?

by the way, i agree 100% with zeno, for the reasons he states, not because i believe the dead body enjoys it.

[bholdr]

HST was also a fan of Menken, zeno, and quoted him often... i believe one of my favs was from the "death of the brown buffalo" as reprinted in "the great shark hunt" it was something like ..."to the dead we owe only the truth"...

so what's the truth about HST? was he an 'ubermench'- rising above the conventions of society and succeding on his own terms, or a drug addled fool with a talent for writing? I think maybe a little of both....


as for what happens to my body after i die, i couldn't care less, i'll be dead. i suppose it'd be nice to be molded into a seat for a girl's bike or something (a la steve martin...)

[Triumph36]

How utterly reasonable, and utterly inhuman.

Are elaborate last rites selfish? Sure, but they're fun too. They're the last place for self-expression, and Hunter Thompson made his living doing just that. He deserves one last eccentricity. What would his friends rather do for a final sendoff, watch him be shot out of a cannon or watch the med school van cart his body to be used for examination? Although I must admit with the way Hunter lived, maybe medical examination would be very interesting.

Zeno, your understanding of the absurd is such a breath of fresh air.

[drudman]

Look, all, I'm not making any outlandish statements. I've made some simple observations that I think we can all agree on:

1) Being a burden (financially, or whatever) to one's loved ones is something that one should try to avoid if possible.
2) The actual enactment of elaborate and costly last wishes has no worth for the person who made them (they are dead).

If you take these to be true, it generally makes no sense to have an elaborate and costly last wish.*

You can, as Daryn pointed out, disagree with #2. I think that a majority of people would agree that to disagree with #1 is immoral.

*As such, keep in mind that I have only been generally opposed to elaborate and costly last wishes. If your last wish is something that would bring your loved ones comfort, or pleasure, while not being a burden, then that is a sensible last wish. HST's last wish may fall under this category. I highly doubt that the one Zeno proposed would.

[daryn]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In risposta di:</font><hr />
1) Being a burden (financially, or whatever) to one's loved ones is something that one should try to avoid if possible.

[/ QUOTE ]

ok, but this one is a gray area. it depends.

if my family is dirt poor, and my wish is to be buried in a solid gold coffin, yeah that's bad. but if i have some kind of reasonably priced request that is easily afforded, no biggie.

[andyfox]

And here I thought this was going to be a thread about Harry S. Truman . . .

[drudman]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
1) Being a burden (financially, or whatever) to one's loved ones is something that one should try to avoid if possible.

[/ QUOTE ]

ok, but this one is a gray area. it depends.

if my family is dirt poor, and my wish is to be buried in a solid gold coffin, yeah that's bad. but if i have some kind of reasonably priced request that is easily afforded, no biggie.

[/ QUOTE ]

Right, that is exactly what I'm saying.

[Zeno]

[ QUOTE ]
Your condescending air is amusing to me.



[/ QUOTE ]

That's good. But it does have a more serious purpose. And I'll leave it at that.

Beyond that I have little to add. The pragmatic approach about family burden and finances is common sense and depends on circumstances, but that really does not even apply to the HST event. The reasons should be obvious.

But I think this thread is hardly worth any more time or comment from anyone.

-Zeno

[drudman]

I never claimed that HST's last request was unreasonable.

I appreciate your "concern" for my well-being.