documented monumented ephemera

Library of Dust, a new book by artist David Maisel, is a beautiful collection of photographed ephemera….can you guess what these are? i thought they were corroded batteries which i guess isn’t far off in a Matrix kind of way…

apparantly, in the early 1900’s, a state psychiatric institution in oregon had an overwhelming number of unclaimed dead. these cremated remains were stored in copper canisters, stacked in a room and forgotten about. over time the copper  began to chemically react with the human ashes resulting in these colorful mineral outgrowths.

see more pictures, and read an accompanying essay here
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on the subject of dead things, my mom and i went to hollywood cemetery and i took a bunch of pictures. my mom was telling me that after world war II, many graveyards were redesigned as parks to attract visitors. known as the “rural” or “garden” style, the rolling hills and effortless landscaping makes “families seem gathered in eternal care-free country outings”.
my step father proposed to my mother here.

ozymandias…