1. After the week of waiting, and then the nasty phone call, finally shake off compulsion to deny/scream/weep/drink compulsively that you were already carrying around with you. Toughen up. You've got others to think about.

2. If you're far away, in the middle of school/work, make travel arrangements while either chain smoking or writing terse e-mail explanations to your bosses. Do not negotiate. Do not think about money. Do not think about time. Note to self : Forget self.

3. It would seem that 72 hours is the stipulated (if unspoken) de facto period of mourning for the contemporary workplace. This sadly (yet eerily convenient) is just about how long a cat, if provided music to listen to, a large bowl of food, and two dishes of water, can hang out in an apartment alone without getting too skittish. Try not to think about it.

4. Remove baggage small enough to carry-on during flight in order to avoid a) possible loss which would currently make you go postal and b) baggage carrousel crowds, which would have you pushing people on the conveyor belt.

5. Remove best dark suit from closet, regardless of current state, along with dress shirt, dark tie, shoe polish. Fold carefully. Fold again. Try once more. Start getting really, really angry as shirt continues to not fold properly, so instead bundle it into a ball.

6. Taxi to airport. Get on plane. Cough/cry/clench your teeth a lot to avoid being talked to or sat with.

7. Now is the time to either a) try to catch up on a week of no sleep, or b) begin the fortifying drinking immediately; appropriate action here will depend largely on your current Guilt deficit, which itself is a sum of a) the last time you saw the departed, b) the circumstances of that meeting, c) overall closeness, d) other crap things happening in their or family's life at the time, e) other crap things happening in your or family's life at the time.

8. In other words, commence bottling like wild, press forehead firmly against window, try to convince yourself the plane crashing would be a remotely negative outcome.

9. Arrive at airport. If lucky this will be in the middle of the night at a very small, one terminal affair. If not, you're on your own.

10. Greet younger relative(s) who've arrived to pick you up. If you're from a family of ten aunts and uncles, this number may be slightly inflated. However, if the funeral is on for ten hours after your arrival, some of them may be a little out of it. Make attempts at defusing through humor. Fail miserably. Try again.

11. Drive to home town/childhood locale which you haven't seen in years. Marvel at how things have remained seemingly frozen in time. Breathe deep breaths before arriving at the church : you need oxygen to breathe. Keep this in mind after you park and walk towards the archway.

12. See state of family and immediately forget 11.

13. Resist overwhelming desire to get back in car and drive away. Recommence bottling. Funerals are not about your feelings. Do what is asked of you, do not argue. Read in front of hundreds from the Bible, be a pallbearer, kneel before the casket, take Communion. You are the strong young, there to support the grieving old.

14. See the state of your younger brother and immediately forget 13. Crack into a million, tiny jagged pieces near the end.

15. And then, suddenly walk out into the blue sky and sea air, see the gulls whirling above, hear the sounding of the bells. Think how sick and wrong it is, for a half second, how everything is so pretty when you walk out of a funeral. If you're burying your nanny up the hill, in a rocky rural cemetery from the 1800s, try to suppress this thought even more. Until your mom arrives, in which case it'll disappear anyhow, on its own.

16. The Wake, and a drink to the dead, and then slowly, joking here and there, and then a slight unbinding of nerves, and then food and more drink, and more laughter. Then stories, as many as possible, as funny and exaggerated as possible. Then the younger ones cart off, maybe down to the shore. By the banks of the bay. And then the sunset. And then the stars and the waves. Think about the other Dead, wish them well, and finally, then when it's all over - the ceremony and structure, the formality and ritual, then really say goodbye.

"It takes a band like Arcade Fire to remind you that we are all custodians of our innocence and that we let it die at our peril." --Robert Everett-Green, the Globe and Mail

Funeral is the debut album from Montreal indie band The Arcade Fire, released September 14, 2004 on the Merge Records label to much fanfare and critical acclaim from all sides. It deserves every accolade that it's gotten, and probably more.

The Arcade Fire are Win Butler, his wife Régine Chassagne and brother Will Butler, and jacks-of-all-trades Richard Parry and Tim Kingsbury. The album came after a busy summer for the band; not only were they busy writing songs and searching for backing musicians and a record label, but Régine's grandmother had passed away in June, and Régine and Will were married in August. They began work recording in September, still looking for a label that would sign them. Then in March, Will and Win's grandfather died, and then Richard Perry's aunt a month later. Merge Records signed the band in May. When the album was finally finished, the band dubbed it Funeral in memory of the loved ones they had lost.

What does it sound like? Think of the indie rock aesthetic of the Shimmer Kids, with skilful percussion and wistful strings and vocals that run from sultry and effortlessly soaring in both French and English as Régine sings to Win's theatrical and over-the-top vibrato. Then make it better. Funeral is almost flawless, and it is unremittingly fantastic. The songs roll into each other without pausing for breath and the music comes in waves, sometimes gently bouncy ("Haïti"), sometimes intense ("In the Backseat"), and sometimes powerfully rocking ("Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)").

Sometimes the record is deeply personal and relevant to the band members themselves -- "Haïti" is a nod to the political unrest that forced Régine's parents to flee their home country (under the dictatorship of François "Papa Doc" Duvalier) in the 1960s, taking refuge in North America. That said, most of it is universal -- after all, everyone has lost someone that they've loved, one way or another, and everyone loses their innocence.

Lyrically, this last is a central concern of much of the album. It starts off with a story of the innocence of youth; the spell is shattered when the focus suddenly shifts to the rougher side of urban life, suicide, and eventually fatalistic acceptance that what was lost can never be reclaimed. The passing of time doesn't help: "Time keep creeping through the neighbourhood/ killing old folks, waking up babies, just like we knew it would." Win sings that "our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up ... I guess we just have to adjust" atop hard-driving guitars, and in listening you know exactly what he means.

Funeral would do any established indie rock band proud -- the fact that it is a debut album makes it all the more impressive.

Tracklist:

01. Neighbourhood #1 (Tunnels) (4:48)
02. Neighbourhood #2 (Laïka) (3:32)
03. Une Année Sans Lumière (3:40)
04. Neighbourhood #3 (Power Out) (5:12)
05. Neighbourhood #4 (7 Kettles) (4:49)
06. Crown of Love (4:42)
07. Wake Up (5:35)
08. Haïti (4:07)
09. Rebellion (Lies) (5:10)
10. In the Backseat (6:20)

Supporting musicians:
Sarah Neufeld; Owen Pallett; Michael Olsen; Pietro Amato; Anita Fust; Sophie Trudeau; Jessica Moss; Genevieve Heistek; Arlen Thompson; Mark Lawson; Thierry Amar.

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Props to http://www.mergerecords.com for biographies and background information and to jaubertmoniker for inhibiting laziness.

Hello Preacher,

I've been to a few dozen funerals by now, so I'd like to clear some things up for you, since you seem to be a little fuzzy about the social and spiritual purpose of a funeral.

A funeral or memorial service exists as a way for the friends and family of the deceased to gather to share their grief and to pay tribute to the deceased's life. The role of the clergy present is to provide a formalized spiritual component that is intended to provide comfort to the survivors.

By all means, lead us in a few prayers or songs as appropriate to the deceased's religion or lack thereof. Funerals are for the living, but they should not dishonor the life and wishes of the deceased.

However, there are some things that just aren't cricket at a funeral. You may not know it, but midway through your "service" you had two fairly large men considering whether or not to take your slick-talking, glad-handing self out to the alley for a little "chat" afterward. For myself, I felt ill for most of the rest of the day.

To avoid possible unpleasantness at future funerals, I'd like to offer you a few helpful hints:

1. If there are plenty of friends and family stepping up to the microphone up to pay tribute to the deceased in words and song, you aren't needed for much more than a closing prayer. Really. Hijacking the service and using it as your own bully pulpit to promote your own agenda for 40 minutes is rude and shows tremendous disrespect to both the mourners and the memory of the deceased. This is especially true when you do it in a place that isn't even a church, much less "your" church.
   
   
2. Remember the advice of professional speakers and comedians: hit your topic three times and then move along. Saying the same thing 20 or 30 times does not make you a convincing speaker: it makes you tedious. Saying it very, very loudly also does not make you more convincing. We got it, really; we just weren't buying it.
   
   
3. And speaking of professionals: actors, when required to fake tears, often use a little bottle of glycerine that they can hide in their sleeves. You started out your hijacking sermon with a moment in which you dramatically broke down weeping ("I'm -- I'm sorry folks, but I can feel {insert deceased's name} with me here today!") and yet you had the dryest eyes in the house. If you're going to steal Jimmy Swaggart's moves, try to be more convincing.
   • Also, good actors remember their lines: try not to slip up and momentarily forget the deceased's name when you're talking to the bereaved afterward. Makes all your talk of how dear the deceased was to you sound like a holy load.
     
     
4. If you're not the theologian you claim, stick to Bible passages and hymns. Don't spout a bunch of harebrained misinformation that better-read people in the audience might be sorely tempted to call you on. For instance, if you feel you must exhort us to do good so that God will build us a mansion in the afterlife -- as if avoiding sin is just so we can all win the Lottery Ticket In the Sky -- don't do stuff like draw dodgy parallels between the word "repent" and "penthouse".
   
   
5. Don't brag about how you came to the deceased in the final year of his life when he was frail and bedridden and "turned him to the Lord". What you did was emotionally and spiritually blackmail a sick old man. This isn't D&D, and he wasn't a wraith in need of "turning".
   • Don't talk as if the deceased's life was nothing but a pointless waste before you got hold of him. The deceased's children sitting there in the audience came along during this time of supposed waste and pointlessness, remember?
     
     
6. Don't blurt out things that the deceased told you in confidence or confession. That is unbelievably disrespectful, and reveals you to be an untrustworthy character who isn't fit to be any kind of spiritual leader.
   
   
7. Don't stand up there and condemn or mock the deceased's achievements. You're supposed to help us celebrate his life, remember? I shouldn't have to tell you that laughing about things the deceased cared about is not appropriate for a funeral. If you feel really strongly about it, save it for your sermon next month after the dead are buried.
   • If the deceased wrote horror novels, don't imply that his books (which you never even read) were tools of Satan, then proceed to spend the next 30 minutes trying to scare us all with the threat of hellfire if we don't get ourselves saved. You actually had a little kid crying at the end of your sermon. I guess you fire-and-brimstone types just don't like horror fiction because you don't like any entertaining competition in the fearmongering business.
     
     
8. Don't stand up there and condemn or mock other religions. The deceased has friends of many faiths and educated nonfaith. Don't add your insult to the pain of our loss.
   
   
9. After you have dishonored our dead friend's life and mocked our careers and beliefs, don't demand that we hold up our hands to show that we've been saved by the Lord. Don't further say "If you're not holding up your hand, I'll come out there and lift it up for you!" No, you won't. Really. Because if you try, you'll be leaving with one less arm than you arrived with.
   
   

Instead of comforting us in our grief, you made us angry. Instead of celebrating the deceased's life, you belittled him, set him aside, and aggrandized yourself.

Shame on you.

Fu"ner*al (?), n. [LL. funeralia, prop. neut. pl. of funeralis of a funeral, fr. L. funus, funeris, funeral: cf. F. fun'erailles.]

1.

The solemn rites used in the disposition of a dead human body, whether such disposition be by interment, burning, or otherwise; esp., the ceremony or solemnization of interment; obsequies; burial; -- formerly used in the plural.

King James his funerals were performed very solemnly in the collegiate church at Westminster. Euller.

2.

The procession attending the burial of the dead; the show and accompaniments of an interment.

"The long funerals."

Pope.

3.

A funeral sermon; -- usually in the plural.

[Obs.]

Mr. Giles Lawrence preached his funerals. South.

 

© Webster 1913.

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Fu"ner*al, a. [LL. funeralis. See Funeral, n.]

Pertaining to a funeral; used at the interment of the dead; as, funeral rites, honors, or ceremonies.

Shak.

Funeral pile, a structure of combustible material, upon which a dead body is placed to be reduced to ashes, as part of a funeral rite; a pyre.

-- Fu"ner*al*ly, adv. [Obs.]

Sir T. Browne.

 

© Webster 1913.