V2i1: A New Year, More Death
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To celebrate the official launch of Volume 2 of The BCD, I’m going to take some time to reflect on Volume 1 — what we loved, what we didn’t, and how that will shape The BCD.
Volume 1 consisted of twenty-three articles: five interviews, four descent shoots, four guest posts, two artist features, and one in depth article looking at whether it is actually good to think about death, according to science. During this time, The BCD made a memento mori pin, launched a Patreon, started a monthly moon calendar subscription, created a mobile art gallery called the Underworld Gallery, and gained an Instagram following of just about 2000 people.
All of this was made possible by a big group of death positive people. Thank you to everyone who was interviewed, who had their art featured, who wrote a guest post, who became a patron, who joined the newsletter, who followed on Instagram, and who read the articles.
In Volume 2 you will keep getting thought-provoking content, but it is going to be released on a different schedule and have more focused material. First off, I’m no longer going to release on the moon cycle — I know, I’m sad about this too! The thing is, it’s pretty hard to get into a regular content cycle when you’re working on a different time table than the majority of the world. Don’t worry though, Moons of the Month calendars will still be released every cycle.
The new material is going to focus on interviews and artist features. While the interviews could be from anyone who has dealt with death in a profound way, I want to pay particular attention to what death is like in New York — since that is where The BCD is based. What are laws surrounding death in New York? How does New York City deal with cemeteries filling up? What happens to inmates who die while serving their sentence?
The artists I feature can be from anywhere, but must be producing visually compelling work with varied conceptual bases. Artists have a profound ability to represent human experiences in a relatable manner. This also applies to how we as humans feel about death — from morbid humor to existential grief, and anything in between. Sharing death-related art will
If you’re new to The BCD and are wondering why I would ever think about death, please check out my posts Why “The Benefits of Contemplating Death?” and “You’re Insane to Think About Death!” (Am I Really?).
If you are a dedicated reader and are looking for a new reason to think about death, I have one for you. Check out this video by Caitlin Doughty of The Order of the Good Death, where she explains how our fear of death came into play in the 2016 election. Spoiler: exploiting the fear of death can make us more nationalistic (to put it mildly).
As always, thank you for tuning in and I look forward to bringing you more content about death next week!
