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Allison C. Meier
144 Plays5 years ago
Allison C. Meier is an Oklahoma-born, Brooklyn-based writer focused on visual culture, architecture, and overlooked history: she believes in writing about the arts and heritage of our world in an accessible, engaging way. We talked about her recent, haunting Fall 2019 article on the Spanish Flu and the depiction of disease by painters in a Pandemic.
I am still thinking about the many topics we discussed including - forgotten history, disease, death, cemetery tours, painting, philosophy, history, Spirit photography, symbols, ghosts and so much more . . .
I hope you enjoy the journey.
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Transcript
Unveiling Heart Island's Hidden History
00:00:16
Speaker
It's interesting from my perspective that things I've written about for years are suddenly being discovered by everybody. So that's kind of like with Heart Island and things.
00:00:30
Speaker
Every time I write about Hard Island, I'm like, I'll never have to write that story again. People still don't know it exists. It's fascinating.
COVID-19 and Mortality's Visible Impact
00:00:40
Speaker
But I don't know how much you want to get into COVID-19 things. Well, and I think that's that. And maybe just before we launch in, maybe we should just take a minute on that. So I was
00:00:56
Speaker
You know, I was quite simply drawn to your your topics and like I kind of joked I saw like the said let's you know, ossuary, you know, and things like that, where it's like, just just kind of fascinating. But also like how much, you know, how much. How much to talk about like death, right? Like, because death is like in front of us, right? Death and disease, right? Like more in front of us right now. And I think one
Honest Depictions of Historical Diseases
00:01:23
Speaker
of the things that I mean, you
00:01:26
Speaker
like if you what I could see about the symbols in the cemetery and all the things you're talking about there's like these larger narratives right where where people have dealt with um death in different ways and and and dealt uh dealt with mortality and I just see you in investigating that research and that writing about that is just like looking at that directly right like I'm gonna look at it directly and
00:01:52
Speaker
Mean what what's been your experience in talking about that? I mean, is this something where it's like you've kind of feel like I don't know if I should keep going on and chat about this or just Like we should just kind of like forge into it, right? Don't you don't think yeah You mean like forge into the topic Yeah, well, I mean just like, you know just with
00:02:18
Speaker
Like there's no reason to sugarcoat the the depiction of disease, Spanish flu, like that article, right? Like in kind of like get right into it. I mean, we don't have to exist in there for the whole like interview. But I guess what I'm telling you, too, is like, let's let's get into it. Let's chat about it. You know what I mean? And I think
Cultural Reflections on Death in America
00:02:34
Speaker
it's it's definitely a conversation I've been having with, you know, I'm pretty connected with other people who write and think about death.
00:02:46
Speaker
And so for us, I think it's like, of course, you're always thinking about what happens when someone dies who is caring for their body. How are we mourning them? And it has like a heightened visibility now. And I think that that's really interesting. And like how I was talking with Jessica Boebert, who's president of the Woodlands Cemetery in Philadelphia, which is like a
00:03:15
Speaker
fascinating place they've really remade themselves as like a community gathering place they let people garden graves and she was how like it's not just the COVID deaths that are visible it's like all death is visible right now because it's like even if your grandfather dies at the age of 93 not from COVID like you can't have a funeral for him or you can't like gather together like you would so there's kind of like this new
00:03:45
Speaker
focused on I think in a way that there hasn't been before. But I guess like me personally, because I write about depth and culture a lot and also lead cemetery tours, and I'm just personally interested, it's like brought a new attention to me that things I've written about a lot or thought about a lot are still needing attention because sometimes
00:04:13
Speaker
I think like, well, I've written about this a hundred times. I don't need to write about it again, but it's a good reminder that even though death is hardly like a unique experience, it's still kind of invisible. And there's also like a particular treatment that I found within, you know, the US as far as, I mean, there's a cultural
00:04:34
Speaker
Kind of context of how death is viewed and once you you know, there's a lot of discussion about like the industry, right? I mean, I've read like Caitlin
Storytelling Roots and Cultural Influences
00:04:43
Speaker
Dowdy stuff, um, you know and which is you know, um It really really fascinating stuff and um part of the thing too I was thinking of when it comes to the cemeteries and some things I read in the past was like Lauren Rhodes um morbid curiosity cures the blues and
00:05:02
Speaker
It's like one of those statements that for me is always just like resonant. I'm like, that's such a true statement. Like, you know, there's there's some sort of like comfort in like feeling like you can look at these things that are very much part of our experience rather than like sublimating them, you know, underneath. Right. So. All right. So, Allison, what were you? So tell me what you were like as as a young child.
00:05:33
Speaker
I mean, I guess like I honestly didn't get into cemeteries until I moved to New York at the age of 24. So that kind of like came later. Just I guess I do it chronologically, but like it just happened. I moved a block away from Greenwood Cemetery and was just fascinated with
00:05:57
Speaker
that there was this huge Victorian burial ground that kind of was stuck in time while the rest of New York has propelled forward.
00:06:06
Speaker
I got into cemeteries more because I was always interested, I think, in history and storytelling. So I grew up in a small town in Oklahoma. And yeah, I guess as a kid, I just, I like the usual person who grows up into a literary nerd. I like to read. Library was great.
00:06:32
Speaker
I don't feel like I had an exceptionally unusual childhood, but I think also growing up in Oklahoma, it's not until I moved away from it that I realized it was kind of different from the rest of the country. It's just like, it's one of the last states to become part of the United States. It's got this boom town kind of feel to it still.
00:07:01
Speaker
And
Art's Role in Environmental and Historical Dialogue
00:07:02
Speaker
the visual culture is also very different. Like, it didn't occur to me growing up that, oh, not everyone knows who, like, the Kiowa Five are, or, like, indigenous art is kind of absent in the rest of the country. So, yeah, and I was in Oklahoma through college, and then I moved to France for a little while, and then I moved to New York. So that's kind of my, like, trajectory in time.
00:07:32
Speaker
Yeah, and so everybody listens to something rather than nothing. We're talking with Allison C. Meyer, and she's a writer, a researcher, published in a lot of publications.
00:07:50
Speaker
You know, one of the things I was wondering, Allison, is you seem to go into a lot of different research areas or topics in your writing. When we're talking about art, what forms of art attract you? Sure. I tend to think about art, and I think I describe it as visual culture a lot of the time because
00:08:18
Speaker
I like to look at visual expression in a very wide way, because I think that's more accessible for more people. So like, I'm, you know, I'm more than happy that I get a chance to write about like, the Laszlo Moholy-Nagy show at the Guggenheim or something. But then I also have spent a lot of time like looking at manhole covers and thinking about them as fine art, or maybe not fine art, but you know, like at least a graphic art. And
00:08:48
Speaker
Yeah, like I appreciate art that kind of engages in the world in ways that people can access. Like I recently wrote about this project that, oh gosh, I shouldn't say people's names if I'm not gonna get them right. Ellie Laurel and Ann Percoco who were like cutting up sections of lawns to show the dormant seed banks below them to kind of show like why American lawn culture is
00:09:17
Speaker
bad for the environment because like it's covering up all these like native plants and stuff. And I like that because it's sculpture in a way. And as they told me, like you wouldn't let someone just come in and tear up your yard. But if you frame it as art, you're kind of given permission to do things that you wouldn't otherwise. So I like art that kind of does that and brings in
00:09:43
Speaker
those important conversations in ways. Another one like I did recently was at the Field Museum, this artist, Chris Pappen, did these really interesting graphics over the, um, the spaces in their Native American hall, because those display cases like hadn't been updated since.
00:10:07
Speaker
you know, decades and the label text is very problematic, the way that the objects are presented in a natural history museum is, you know, problematic. And rather than I think the museum does plan at some point to like do a big overhaul, but he was able to do this intervention to layer over a more
00:10:32
Speaker
honest indigenous history while still recognizing that that was part of the museum. So I'm always excited when artists are bringing those kind of questions into everyday spaces where you wouldn't see them. But then also thinking about like, what can you do as an artist that like you couldn't do another role?
00:10:56
Speaker
Yeah, I I read that article about the the lawns too and you can geek out on that because I thought there was some like absolutely fascinating concepts, right? I mean the environmental the environmental impact was obviously or at least for me was first and foremost in the consideration but I even think the concepts that you had in there of the kind of like There's these kind of submerged
00:11:19
Speaker
like wildness that are that's underneath the lawn, you know, in these seeds in kind of like that time capsule of like, who knows what's going to come up where I had no concept like that, that potential was right there. So I thought it was I thought it was truly wild. Like you said, in putting in the concept of like art, right, because
00:11:41
Speaker
I mean, take a look at like HOAs, the worst organizations, like, well, I'm not gonna go on the HOA, but like a completely useless appendage, in my opinion, most of the time, and like kind of like counterintuitive like rules around lawns and perfection and this picturesque type of thing. So I thought that article in
Art's Broad Definition and Societal Challenges
00:12:02
Speaker
like what you were exploring was very subversive and freeing. So I enjoyed that. I got Ellie Irons, not Ellie Laurel, sometimes,
00:12:11
Speaker
I don't do well remembering names off the top map. She's fantastic. Not the only time I've heard so bad or didn't want to get her name wrong. So yeah, and I yeah, so I really appreciated reading about that. And of course, we can get into a little bit of two about which cemetery tours, but just about as far as like the green space that's there and the lawns and all that I see it as intertwined. So
00:12:37
Speaker
Allison, I mean, you're really smart. You research a lot of things. You encounter a lot of art. What is art? Yeah, I mean, that is probably not something I can answer or anyone can. But for me, what I approach as something that's been done like in a
00:13:03
Speaker
deliberate way kind of like as a form of visual expression. But I think art can be just about anything, which is an annoying way to look at things sometimes. But for where I come from, it's like ways of manipulating the world, I guess, to ask questions. It doesn't have to always be in galleries and museums or even public art installations.
00:13:33
Speaker
And sometimes maybe the person doing it didn't even really consider it art. Like I think about W.E.P. Du Bois' data visualizations or like, I'm interested in like 19th century spiritualists who kind of used drawing to record what they were experiencing with the spirit world. And maybe they weren't necessarily thinking, I am creating art, but I think
00:14:02
Speaker
that's what it is, is art. So yeah, that's a hard question to answer. And I'll think, you know, I have a BA in journalism too. And so I certainly am not the person that is going to answer that question once and for all. But I think it's a good thing to continue to ask, because like, if we only think art is like, what's hanging on the museum walls, then I think that really limits our
00:14:32
Speaker
You know a
Art and Pandemics: Historical Contexts
00:14:33
Speaker
lot of richness in the world Yeah, yeah, and I and I appreciate your speculations on it because a lot of time, you know, I find You know, that's what it is speculations on the topic and even with theorists, you know Kind of try to point where you know, like is you know with the novel is there a perfectly written novel, right? Is there one without extraneous words, you know and it has to do with a lot of the context and definition and
00:15:01
Speaker
Yeah, I appreciate your comments on that. Alison, I had conveyed to you, I had read your article, Spanish Flu and the depiction of disease. It was written last fall and I'm very glad I encountered it because I was able to, well, read about a topic that has been an interest in me more recently.
00:15:27
Speaker
But also I'm a big fan of ego and she laid a painter his art and you know as far as that Article like in how it pulled me in and drew me in of course again was topic of you know art in a pandemic but also this this piece I had never seen that that painting unfinished painting by by ego and she lay of him his his his wife and
00:15:54
Speaker
his wife being pregnant and the painting itself depicting the child, which was never born because both Igo and Shilei and his wife were taken by the Spanish flu. It's a truly haunting painting. You wrote that article in the fall prior to our current and historical pandemic that we're experiencing
00:16:24
Speaker
Can you just talk a little bit about how that article came about and kind of connect it to the general question of what role art has in a pandemic? Yeah, so I wrote that, of course, not knowing that only months from then
00:16:47
Speaker
I would be under lockdown during a pandemic. So I was not thinking about this applying necessarily to our lives now, but it's interesting. I published that article in October how it's kind of taken on a new
00:17:03
Speaker
resonance even for me having written it. So I was really thinking about, we had just reached the centennial of the 1918 to 1919 flu epidemic, which is often called the Spanish flu, but not because it had anything to do with Spain. They just were the only ones really reporting on it honestly, which is a whole other thing you could go into. But for the art aspect,
00:17:30
Speaker
I was thinking about like, well, this happens in 1918. This is a real big time of upheaval in the art world with modernism. It's coming right after the Armory Show.
00:17:43
Speaker
There's artists like Egon Sheila, like doing really interesting depictions of the body. And I just wondered, like, I've never seen a museum retrospective about the Spanish flu. I think the closest we got last year was the Mutter Museum did an exhibition on the 1918 flu in Philadelphia, which got hit pretty hard.
00:18:08
Speaker
But it wasn't really about art, although they did team up with this performance group called Last Theory to do this parade that commemorated the people that died. And so I just wondered about this absence of art, and that's always interesting to me, like, when there seems to be something missing. So I started on this little investigation through history to see, like, what art existed. And, like, with the Sheila painting,
00:18:38
Speaker
Like he didn't paint that as a memorial to the family he never ended up having, but it kind of ended up being that like he started it and then didn't finish it when he and his pregnant wife died in that epidemic or pandemic. And when I was researching the article, I think I was surprised at how little art there was. But then when I started to think about it, well,
00:19:07
Speaker
The art that does exist that was actually grappling with it, like Edvard Munch had painted some self portraits of himself before and after he was like going through the flu and you just see how they like sapped your energy. And if you've ever been really sick, like, and you get better, the last thing you want to do is kind of dwell on what just happened to you. You want to move on. And especially with that epidemic coming
00:19:36
Speaker
right after World War I, there was even more of an urgency to like get back to normal. And I
Pandemic Memories and Historical Cycles
00:19:43
Speaker
think now
00:19:46
Speaker
I'm thinking about it more because we keep having all these talks like, when are we going to get back to normal? And I worry you would think that such things would never be forgotten. But I would bet the 1918 flu was pretty obscure to people until this year, even though it killed more people than World War I. It's just we tend to have this forgetfulness with disease. And I think it's because like if you
00:20:12
Speaker
died in World War I. Like, you died a hero. There's monuments to you, but you probably have flags on your grave every year. But if you died of the flu, you just died of the flu. And so now we're experiencing this loss again. And I wonder if it's going to have artists kind of reflecting on this. Like, there's certainly a lot of art happening right now. Like, people are showing on Instagram. People are doing collaborative projects.
00:20:42
Speaker
it, but they tend to be very much these kind of like, we're all together, let's get through this. They're not really dealing with the really haunting, terrible aspects of either getting the flu and thinking you're going to die or losing someone and not being able to mourn them. So because I wrote that article for the Wellcome Collection, which is based in London, they have
00:21:07
Speaker
a really smart focus on medicine, kind of with a cultural focus. So that is how that article came about. But it's interesting, they're not actually the first place I tried to pitch something similar to. I was pitching things about 1918 flu, like all last year, year before, and people were like, oh, it's not that timely.
00:21:28
Speaker
Oh, this does have to do with now and now it's like Exceptionally timely. So it's interesting how like we've had this collective Memory of something that had really faded out of our public consciousness Yeah, and I think that you bring up that point I mean it just struck me when you're saying it as far as the amount of deaths exceeding World War one which is a
00:21:53
Speaker
You know, I think if people do know about World War I and done a little bit of research, maybe read literature in the history around it, I mean, it's regarded as an absolute horrific horror on the planet Earth of an absolute bloodbath, right? And, um, but then, as you mentioned, you know, the flu contemporaneous with that occurring is taking out even more people, right? And the difference between how those deaths, um,
00:22:22
Speaker
Are remembered do you find it a little bit eerie now that like you had written that and like you know now everybody's like looking at this and it's like all the Spanish foot and Getting into the history of that you find a little bit of strange to observe from your vantage point haven't already gone into that
00:22:38
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Well, and I also find it strange. So this isn't the only article I wrote about the 1918 flu. I wrote some like just purely history focused ones, too. And I was writing about, you know, everyone wearing masks, everything being shut down and the church bells stopped ringing. And when I was writing that stuff, I was like, wow, I can't imagine what that would be like. And so quickly later, you know, I live in New York. Everyone's wearing a mask. Everything's pretty shut down.
00:23:07
Speaker
and there is like an eerie quiet to a lot of parts of the city. And so it's interesting to have read about that history. Or like even this week, I was writing a story that hasn't gone math about plague columns, which were put up in the 18th and 17th century to kind of commemorate
00:23:29
Speaker
that you had made it through a plague. There's a really famous one in Vienna. And I was reading about the 17th century plague that that Vienna column commemorates. And there's this passage someone wrote about how it was awful, all the bodies, all the death, but also how awful it was to see your friends on the street and not being able to say hi to them. And I was like, ah, it's like now.
00:23:57
Speaker
It's kind of wild. But then I also, on the flip side of that, these are always awful times, but it does kind of reassure me reading through these things that are so similar that we have gone through this in the past. And I think that's the understanding that history gives me. People have experienced epidemics and pandemics before.
00:24:25
Speaker
And we're still here, like society is still here. It's different every time it goes through that. People die in their tragedies, but I do find it kind of reassuring that it's like people have survived through terrible times that seemed like they will never end. And so we
Reclaiming Lost Narratives
00:24:45
Speaker
will get through this one, too. Yeah, I appreciate you pulling out that point about the role of history and
00:24:55
Speaker
You know, I appreciate all your efforts in the research. And I think a lot of what you're writing about have written about while a personal interest to me has some importance of like pulling out history and kind of like reclaiming some ideas that, you know, that otherwise might be lost. One of the things I
Exploring Spirit Photography's Impact
00:25:18
Speaker
wanted to chat with you about is I personally took notice of
00:25:24
Speaker
Um, you know, so I like spooky stuff, right? Like I like, um, you know, books like Wisconsin death trip, um, and like the role of photography, uh, black and white old time, um, photography around, uh, the occult, even shows that are super popular now, right. On, um, you know, on, on, on television of, you know, trying to capture paranormal and things like that. So I have a deep interest in that in the kind of.
00:25:51
Speaker
you know, the veil between like life and death. And you had written some about, you know, the role of photography and spirit photography and like the role it played historically, you know, like one sense of like, you know, is there any documentation of like the spirit world versus, you know, the manipulations that go into, you know, basically early filters that were created
00:26:20
Speaker
um, to create these images and spirit photography. Can you, can you talk a little bit about that article and a little bit about the background of that, um, that phenomena? Yeah. And I think I'm not a hundred percent sure which article you're referring to, but I've written about it a few times. I think in different contexts and given talks about it too. So like spirit photography, I guess for people who might not know,
00:26:48
Speaker
emerged in the 19th century alongside spiritualism which was in its simplest form people trying to speak to the dead whether that was through seances or spirit drawing and spirit photography played on that photography was pretty new and
00:27:09
Speaker
There was already a lot of experimentation with basically any type of new technology and spiritualism, like some people even proposed. Rather than laying the transatlantic cable, you could use spirits to talk between the US and the UK. So people were, you know, if you look at like spirit wrapping, it's not that dissimilar from Morse code. So there was all these interesting intersections between spiritualism and technology.
00:27:38
Speaker
And I am always really interested in 19th century photography because like it was the first time in human history you could really rapidly capture moments. But people were still kind of figuring out what that meant. So it started out like kind of being people would stage things like paintings and I got
00:28:04
Speaker
into portraiture and documentation and with the spirit photos basically you go into a studio you get a photo and supposedly on that photo is the spirits and they take kind of like different forms like some of their very ethereal just blasts of light some of them are actual faces
00:28:26
Speaker
And when I started researching it, I think I was coming, like I love weird Victorian stuff, like, and the weirder, the better. And there's a lot of funny photographs of like people holding their own, sort of like pretending they're in skiing or something. And so I came into, I was like, look at this weird thing. Like, this is so strange. How would anyone believe this? But I think as I read about it more and more, I got a real empathy with people who were doing it because like,
00:28:55
Speaker
If you lost someone in the 19th century, you maybe didn't even have a photograph of them. And so these things were kind of just to remember that someone had been there at all, however perfectly. So of course, that spirit might look nothing like your loved one, but the need to believe in it was so strong that I think we
00:29:22
Speaker
from that perspective can find a lot of empathy in them. And I even got into enough that there's this really, I don't know if you know about it, there's this place in New York called the Penumbra Foundation. And they do like historic photography practices. So they actually have a 10 type studio and
00:29:47
Speaker
The woman who manages it, Jolene Lupo, created a spirit photograph for me. So I got to see the whole process of what it would be like to go into a 10-type studio, get the photograph, and then how it was exposed on the plate. And it was really just a fascinating history of photography. And I love that there's still this one place carrying on 10-type spirit photos.
00:30:17
Speaker
And I also did the closest thing I think you can get to like an honest spirit photograph, which is an aura photograph. And I went into magic jewelry in Chinatown in New York. And you can get this Polaroid ticket of you with like your aura.
00:30:35
Speaker
supposedly around you. And they do this reading. And it was just kind of like a nice experience. Like, you know, the reading of it was like, Oh, you're really tired, you've been running around a lot, which I think could apply to anyone living in New York. But there is just something nice about kind of like creating these moments of like self reflection through photography. So through that whole process of researching, and then actually trying to get firsthand experience
00:31:03
Speaker
with what a spirit photo would have been like, really changed my understanding of it going in. And I love any time I can do that with a story. Yeah, I saw that the image of the spirit photography, I think you might have posted that image. It's a beautiful rendition. I mean, it's an incredible photograph. Just within that process, it's a process that takes a long time. Yeah, I mean,
00:31:33
Speaker
I think the longest it takes it takes a lot longer on the photographer's part. So like creating the plate, exposing the plate, protecting the plate, use the subject, kind of go in there and get a bright light flash in your face. And then you're on your way. But I think people think it definitely took takes longer than
00:31:57
Speaker
for me to take a selfie on my iPhone. Like I think it's like 15 seconds or something. You have to hold your pose, but it's not anything. Yeah, it doesn't take as long as like you might think based on all these stories about people like not being able to smile because they're staring for so long.
00:32:19
Speaker
The yeah, that's what I was wondering, too. I know some of those photographs. I know what they're some of the technologies, older technologies of needing to capture like every bit of light are these stories of like having to stand in like stifling clothes for a long time. Oh, yeah. And I'm sure if I'd been wearing like a 50 pound Victorian dress or something, it would have been a lot more unpleasant. An incredible exercise and patience.
00:32:50
Speaker
One of the one of the questions I wanted to ask you that I ask, you know All the creators I have on on on the podcast is Did you ever ask yourself why it is you create I mean writing is a difficult endeavor writing
Creative Process and Storytelling Drive
00:33:10
Speaker
and researching and trying to Get history right or get the story, right? It takes an incredible amount of
00:33:18
Speaker
of, of effort. Have you ever, you know, kind of wondered for yourself and your creative process why you do it? Yeah. I mean, I think every writer wonders that every time they sit down to write a new, it's not easy. Um, it's not, I think it was like David Rakoff had something about like writing. It's like you're coming back to the beginning every time. And so definitely it's, it's not an easy thing to do to create something.
00:33:47
Speaker
whatever you're doing. I never had anything else I wanted to do rather than to be a writer. I guess going back to your first question about childhood, I think my mom even found something where I had written at nine years old that I needed to have good handwriting, so I was going to be a writer. So I always just, that's what I wanted to do. But how I got into like history stuff,
00:34:17
Speaker
I think it's just like I see that there's a lot of stories there that aren't being told. And I definitely report tons on the current world interviewing living artists, but I also think it's really important that there's visibility to the past because so much of what we have now, everything we have now is built on that. But yeah, it's for process of writing, it is like,
00:34:47
Speaker
kind of still a mystery. Every time I sit down to write a story, I'm like, I hope this works because you're kind of just basing it on like this just thing you don't quite understand in yourself that I think a lot of artists and creators probably feel where you're, I guess going back to spiritualism, maybe another reason why I identify with this, I feel like with art,
00:35:14
Speaker
type of writing, you are channeling something in a way that doesn't always make sense, or at least that's how I feel for me. Maybe other people
Cemeteries as Cultural Narratives
00:35:25
Speaker
are like really just doing it in a way that I haven't quite figured out. Yeah, there's always that, there's always that, that question, I think in what you said, you're always kind of like doing it again, right? And that's kind of part of the theme of like,
00:35:40
Speaker
Alright, so alright, I finished that and that's published and then there's this whole realm and I know my process but like how is Alright, is this gonna come out like how's this gonna develop right like what's it gonna be? Totally one another another thing on to ask you about is you do cemetery tours and
00:36:07
Speaker
Right down the road from me, I did a little research when I moved into town. I'm in Albany, Oregon. It's out of the capital of Oregon, Salem. There's a Jewish cemetery, Waverly Jewish Cemetery, right nearby me.
00:36:28
Speaker
I didn't know, but it's like one of the ways I try to learn is like, you know, what's around? What are the parks that are around? What's the nature that's around? And the cemetery being there is the largest Jewish cemetery, I think, between Portland or Seattle and San Francisco. And it's small. And I just, you know, walk around it and there's like a little placard and it's definitely a unique history, you know, very much tied to this area.
00:36:57
Speaker
Um, I know on your writing and the basis from what i've seen in you tours of the cemeteries uh in particular out there uh in in new york city is uh kind of um your explanation and explication of What symbols are there the narratives or the stories or the practices the cultural practices around? you know cemeteries and mourning in in in death
00:37:27
Speaker
Can you just chat about like some of the kind of like the history that you find in the tours that you yourself conduct as a tour leader? Yeah, and I think free cemetery is unique depending on its time and place. Do you know when like the Jewish cemetery near you got opened?
00:37:52
Speaker
Yeah, so it's it's it certainly goes back and then you look at the dates. It's like um late Late 19th century and kind of like first half 20th century. There's not a lot of newer Stone, but it was like a particular area To be interred, you know regionally and all that stuff's always connected to you know potential like anti-Semitism or whether there's Jewish culture in particular areas But yeah, it's it's an old it's it's an old one. I think some of them go back to mid 19th century there and
00:38:22
Speaker
And have you seen like a 21st century Jewish cemetery? I have not. The other one I had been to was the Jewish cemetery in Prague, which is
00:38:36
Speaker
Oh, yeah, which is definitely not 21st century. It's not 21st century. It's initially incomprehensible, but wonderfully fascinating. But no, not a newer one. No. Yeah, I'm just I'm curious, because one of the cemeteries I've spent some time in New York is Bayside Cemetery in Ozone Park in Queens. And it's also from that time period, it sounds like the one near you is and it's really interesting because New York
00:39:04
Speaker
has a huge Jewish population, so there's Jewish cemeteries going back to, like, 1700s. And the modern ones, they're all pretty densely packed, uniformed graves, and have a lot of, like, Judaic symbolism. But then the ones from the 19th century, the early 1900s, don't. They look just like Victorian cemeteries. And it's kind of interesting that
00:39:33
Speaker
these burial traditions have changed over time, like visual expression, what people were choosing to remember themselves with. I think you can read a lot into how they saw themselves within society. And I'm certainly not the one to speak on Jewish history, so I won't go too deep into this.
00:39:56
Speaker
But like, I think maybe the one near you, it's always interesting to me to see like, well, they had urns on their monuments or like these really big mausoleums or something that you wouldn't think to see in a Jewish cemetery. It's like, well, maybe that's how they were identifying wasn't necessarily by their religion, but by their place in society, which has changed over time. But anyway,
00:40:24
Speaker
I just want to hear more about people's local cemeteries, but I guess that's your question. Well, one of the things that I find, you know, and this is very, very particular. I mean, I think the first time that I recall the practice that it might exist in other cultures, but seen within the Jewish cemeteries is placed in a rock on the headstone, which is a remembrance. But it's also like a tiny ritual which I participated in seeing.
00:40:53
Speaker
Well, Savannah. Actually, I was in the other Jewish cemetery in all the fascinating southern Gothic cemeteries down in the haunted city of Savannah, Georgia.
00:41:11
Speaker
But the practice of putting the stones on the top of the gravestone, which for me, even though there's this anonymity to the individuals that I'm there, not connected to that history, there's some sort of grounding aspect of that ritual that I just adore, and it's a way to participate or interact in a way that I haven't known in other cultural aspects of, and somehow seeing
00:41:38
Speaker
piles of stones on top of the stone where others have taken the moment to remember or recognize that individual is just really fascinating practice. Yeah, to really just show like I was here and remember to a powerful symbol. And I wish I've never had the chance to go Savannah, but it looks like incredible cemeteries there.
00:42:02
Speaker
Well, incredible, but also, I mean, you know, there's always these, you know, I've been down in New Orleans and Savannah, just like the context of like, I don't know, there's something that's kind of Southern, haunted, Gothic, but also like
00:42:18
Speaker
You know the ghost stories right and it's pretty deep and some of it, you know, obviously tilts to commercialize like hokey aspect of which I will completely participate in as well but but also some of the You know the older history and I think part of it is, you know, I'm a Yankee I'm from up in you know, Rhode Island. I grew up outside of Providence. So I
00:42:42
Speaker
you know what different regions of this country mean for me you know there's there's a particular meaning of going south you know when you're from the north and uh different ways of interacting but um so your tour the the the tours that you do in in new york city i mean these popular tours i mean they book way up in advance or i mean i know times are now are obviously quite different but like like yeah not so popular now yeah like what what like what
00:43:13
Speaker
You know, what happens is an hour or two or like, how do you conduct it? Yeah, it really depends. I am always fascinated because I, I think some of the tour is always a good idea. Um, what people get excited about what they don't. So like, I've done tours that have sold out immediately on, usually they're about symbolism, magic, spiritualism and women's history. People are all in on that.
00:43:41
Speaker
The tours I curiously have trouble getting people on are like the nature theme tours, which I wonder if it's like, it's one thing to go to a cemetery, is another thing to go to a nature walk in a cemetery that maybe attracts a different group. But I will say the people that show up for the nature walks are like the most excited to be there because they are
00:44:06
Speaker
excited. They are always like usually local New York people who like are obsessed with urban nature. And they know more about the trees there than me. It's always great. But yeah, so I mainly do the tours at Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn, but I've also done them like
00:44:28
Speaker
Woodland Cemetery in the Bronx, Hartsdale Pet Cemetery, which is just north here. And then I've also had a few walking tours in Manhattan on death in Colonial New York. And this used to be a cemetery, which was where cemeteries used to be. That one was also unpopular, sadly, but I thought a tour I myself would want to go on. You just don't quite know.
00:44:53
Speaker
what people are going to be into or it just depends like the time of year or two. Like you schedule as many cemetery tours as you want in October, they will sell out in February. It's a little thinner. So it's like writing the book that you want to read. I mean, you, you, you want to, you're creating the tour that you want to take, but sometimes not everybody wants to take that same tour.
00:45:19
Speaker
Yeah, and I haven't written any books, but my understanding is you can do the same thing like write the book you want or write the book that's going to be good for the market. And there's the same thing with cemetery tours. But luckily, I don't do them for the money. I mean, I do get paid to have full disclosure, but it's not my main job. So I'm really doing it more
00:45:44
Speaker
Just cause like, I think as a writer, I spend a lot of time at my computer, writing things for the internet or publishing. And
Philosophical Reflections on Mortality
00:45:52
Speaker
it's nice to actually get out and share stories with humans face-to-face, all that of course not now in pandemic days. But yeah, that's what's been my interest in doing them. And I think I've been doing it since 2011. So a little while.
00:46:11
Speaker
And yeah, I always like I have yet to get out of things to create new tours about. And thank you for sharing that. I mean, I find, you know, just for myself, like I've thought about like, you know, just
00:46:30
Speaker
always ever since I was a little kid just kind of like whether it's interest in ghosts or like you know, I listen to a lot of doom and death metal like it's like a component of my personality that I think I always have to navigate and I think folks who have this interest have to one of the ways I described it is like even kind of like looking and trying to learn from human like atrocities or people under extreme duress for me, it's always been a
00:46:57
Speaker
potentially very Inspiring right to see how human beings react or how we try to like create meaning with within this context so for myself I always tapped into kind of like very vibrant like energy parts of like Like rather than shying away. I've just kind of seen human beings be very interested in that that context that they're placed in to be
00:47:26
Speaker
very uh interesting in in trying and it's dark it feels dark but i just i don't know i think it's always like we're always looking for permission of like just trying to figure out how to deal with mortality and you know i think part of the thing is as a philosopher and what the philosophy podcast i mean plato said is just you know philosophy is just contemplation to death that's all it is right all the big questions right um
00:47:51
Speaker
Like, why are we doing any of this? There's a lot of questions you don't have to ask if you're immortal, right? So. Yeah, it's an interesting way to look at it. Do me in like creating space for it, like in music kind of. I'm not involved with Doom Metal or anything, but there are there. Yeah, there's a lot of ways you can come out of it because it is a universal thing.
00:48:20
Speaker
So the title of the podcast, the big question that I have is why is there something rather than nothing? I was going to ask you your thoughts on that. Like something rather than nothing. Yeah. Yeah. Another big question put up there with like what art is, I think like. Yeah, it's for me like I think that
00:48:50
Speaker
drawn to cemeteries is like I find that and I know this is not everybody but I do find that recognizing the brevity of life and that our time here is brief really does give my life importance and it gives that kind of like something whereas I think
00:49:15
Speaker
without that could feel like nothing so I think like when I walk through Greenwood or cemeteries elsewhere and see all these lives that have come before me it does really put a sense of importance on the time that I have and also maybe a little bit not that too because you recognize like I'm you could be
00:49:42
Speaker
one of a million. And that's okay. So I find those kind of sides of it to be reassuring. And yeah, with death, I think we all experience it. We all have dead, we all confronted at some point in our lives. And so
00:50:07
Speaker
It's very present with us, but I think like you can either recognize it and have a positive relationship with death or you can be afraid of it. And for me, having spent a lot of time in cemeteries, gotten to know funeral directors, people in the death industry, I think it's made me feel less afraid of death and more comfortable with that side of nothing too, because as someone that doesn't,
00:50:35
Speaker
really believe in it after life. I also am okay with that, and that's been nice to kind of come out through cemeteries. Yeah, and thank
Preserving History Through Storytelling
00:50:46
Speaker
you for that answer. Yeah, it's quite the way to look at it.
00:50:56
Speaker
So, Allison, like I said, I read a lot of your articles. I like I told you, I'm personally a big fan. I find them to be just they're exciting in the sense of what they explore. And a lot of it feels really new. And I definitely suggest
00:51:17
Speaker
you know, to all the listeners to check out more of your writing. But could you just mention like the ways to access your works or where to look? I was going to read the bylines. You get a lot of bylines. It's a lot of big, very impressive. Well, yeah, I mean, for most people who are full time writers, you end up writing a lot. It's your job. But
00:51:43
Speaker
Um, yeah, I have, I guess I, I have most of my work at Allison Seamire.com. And then I also have a Twitter account under my same name. I guess in terms of things I've written recently, I wrote for National Geographic about Heart Island because
00:52:03
Speaker
There's a lot of misunderstanding about it right now in terms of COVID-19. There's a lot of sensationalizing about New York digging mass graves, but these have existed since the 19th century. And I've also been writing about pandemic history for JSTOR daily recently, trying to put things in context.
00:52:28
Speaker
Yeah, those are, and then I'm working on a story for Wellcome Collection right now about the rural cemeteries right now being these places of urban retreat, much in the same way they were when they were founded in the 19th century. So those are like my, I guess there's a lot of death right now. Sadly, I have never been busier with writing, for better or worse, just because it's like interesting that all these things I've written about for years are suddenly
00:52:57
Speaker
very central on people's minds. Yeah and thanks for laying that out there too and it's a very nice website and there's a lot of ability to connect to your writings and but I just Allison it's been a pleasure to talk to you and I just really want to thank you for spending time
00:53:20
Speaker
on the podcast like i said both from like you know personally as far as my my interest in my uh being really fascinated with your writing and um you know you're uh very considered answers um i mentioned a lot of times with this podcast like there's a selfish component where i'm just really just like listening here talking and just learning uh so it's very you know rewarding for me and for the listeners but i just wanted to um
00:53:47
Speaker
Uh,
Conclusion and Gratitude
00:53:48
Speaker
yeah, I just wanted to really thank you for taking the time in, uh, joining, um, something rather than nothing. Yeah. And thanks for asking. I think like maybe like a lot of creators, I don't really pause to think why I do things. So this has been interesting for me too. Uh, thanks again, Allison. And, um, again, really appreciate your time and you take care. Yeah, you too. Bye now. Bye.
00:54:21
Speaker
You are listening to something rather than nothing.