KtBlog

Letter to USPS.

DO NOT Close It

momade_graves

Three Cemeteries

Supernatural real estate in Mozambique

M4011P-1401

Festival of the Hungry Ghosts

What to make when it’s your turn to feed a dead grandmother?

Sweet Heaven When I Die

Chava Rosenfarb on CBC

The oldest essay in my new book, Sweet Heaven When I Die, is “For Every Life Saved,” a portrait of the last great Yiddish writer, Chava Rosenfarb. I adored Chava. I loved her massive, crudely translated novel, Der boym fun lebn (The Tree of Life), and her later, even sharper short stories, especially “Edgia’s Revenge,”…

Jacket, "It’s a Jungle Out There," autumn/winter 1997–98.

Alexander McQueen’s Afterlife

Those who only know of Alexander McQueen as the name behind the most famous wedding dress in recent history will be in for a royal shock when they step inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s retrospective of McQueen’s career. Nowhere will one find anything resembling Kate Middleton’s virginal attire on display. Instead, the collection begins…

Animal Altars: All dressed up in the flesh of the dead. By Beatrice Marovich with Krista Dragomer.

Animal Altars

All dressed up in the flesh of the living dead.

Still from "Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then."

Falling Up

The fate of an unanswered prayer in Brent Green’s Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then.

He is frequently known to need serious dental work.

Mortician or Priest

What kind of exorcist do America’s movie theaters really need?

Charlie Louvin

We’re Still Louvin’ You, Charlie!

This morning, Charlie Louvin—one half of the classic country duo the Louvin Brothers—passed away at the age of 83. Though the Brothers ended their musical partnership back in 1963, and Ira, Charlie’s hard-drinking older brother, died in a 1965 car crash, their music has never really gone away. The Louvins’ distinctive close harmony went on…

srimurugan

The Afterlife, The Aftermath

When a grandmother’s ghost says go, you go.

"View down on Beacon Hill & Back Bay" by Werner Kunz via Flickr.

A Package Arrives

“We just put it into a drawer, because we had enough to deal with.”

Note to cancer by author.

That’s Cancertainment!

Sexy corpses and smug survivors: cancer gets its own TV show.

Haymarket Martyrs Memorial

Going to the Graves on Labor Day

I tend to avoid cemeteries. White marble slabs creep me out in a clown-like way. But when I arrived in Chicago on Labor Day, my hostess suggested that I check out a piece of Chicago’s anarchist past. We traipsed down to Forest Home Cemetery to pay homage to the Haymarket Martyrs’ Monument. She explained to…

trish-hooper

Trish Hooper’s Last Words

KtB has had a spate of submissions regarding illness and death lately, and autumn has only just begun. In today’s piece, “Letting Gravity Win,” KtB editor Meera Subramanian reminds us that “we are all guilty of having lost the art of dying” and builds a case for the widespread reclaiming of this lost art. To…

"Luis and the Balloons" by Thomas Hawk

Letting Gravity Win

Four questions whose answers might save your life.

White skinned male mannequin, lighted from the right side of the image, sitting behind a large shop window. It has strong features, colorful eyes and plastic hair. Behind it there are two other models, another white one and a female mannequin with shiny black hair.

The Reconciliation of Unbelief

A story within the AIDS story.

suicide_options

Is He Dead?

An estranged stepfather’s suicide begs the question.

Photo by CS Muncy.

moving

“People were getting auctioned up on stage but I didn’t see anything I wanted nor did I think I should be for sale.”