Odd Cremation Urns

How creative do you want to be about the remains of your nearest and dearest? Is a vase on the mantle enough?  Oddee.com has compiled an interesting collection of 12 Craziest Cremation Urns from various websites. I don't think that all of them are crazy, although a few are pretty creepy such as the urn modeled on your appearance. Some of them make sense to me. Be sure and check them all out.

Do you consider yourself green? Then you know that ash is an important nutrient. The following Biodegradable Urn contains a tree seed that gets its nutrients from your ashes. Talk about the ultimate recycling. You become a tree! Greening the planet.. Shades of Soylent Green?

My sister is very active in the Transferware Club, as well as being an antiques dealer in English transferware pottery. I think the following urn might interest her and her customers. Not old enough to be an antique, so maybe not. Still the technique harks back to Josiah Spode.

Seattle's Charles Krafft offers the dead the chance to be the container. He makes urns from human ashes, following a formula that Josiah Spode invented in 1797, producing fine English china glaze by adding calcinated cow bone to the company's clay mixture. His artwork includes this urn made from cremated human remains in the shape of a vodka bottle at the request of the deceased's friends.

Library Fountain

I just love this Library Fountain. It's the Amelia Vaerio Weinberg Memorial Fountain at the Cincinnati Public Library. Cincinnati sculptor Michael Frasca. Dedicated in 1990.

Ann Littlewood Zoo Mysteries: Lit Salon August 2

Are you fascinated by wild animals?

Ever wonder what it would be like to work at a zoo?

Do you enjoy a mystery with unusual characters and a a good puzzle?

Then join Mystery Readers NorCal in Berkeley on Thursday, August 2 at 2 p.m. for a Literary Salon with Ann Littlewood, author of Endangered, the third in the Zoo Mystery series.

... where not all the characters are Homo sapiens

... where an animal's behavior can provide a crucial clue

... and where "the inside scoop" is not a metaphor.

Slideshow!

Where: Berkeley, CA (Comment below to RSVP and for directions)
Potluck Sweets or Savories

Ann Littlewood was a zoo keeper in Portland, Oregon for twelve years. She raised lions and cougars, an orangutan; and native mammals, as well as parrots, penguins, and a multitude of owls. The financial realities of raising primates (two boys of her own) led Ann to exchange a hose and rubber boots for a briefcase and pantsuit in the health care industry. Ann has maintained her membership in the American Association of Zookeepers and has kept in touch with the zoo world by visiting zoos and through friendships with zoo staffers.  http://zoomysteries.com/

Cartoon of the Day

Classic Farside:

TV Series: The Last Policeman

Deadline reports:

Lorenzo di Bonaventura’s di Bonaventura Pictures is in negotiations to acquire the rights to The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters with the intention of turning it into a TV series. The producer had the Pierre Morel-directed pilot Zero Hour picked up at ABC. Quirk Books’ David Borgenicht will also be a producer. The book was just published.

The first in a trilogy, The Last Policeman is set on the brink of an apocalypse.

Mysteries to Die For to Close

After 19 years in business, Mysteries to Die For in Thousand Oaks, CA will close this Saturday. Alan Chisholm, who has owned the small bookshop since 2008, told the Ventura County Star that customer responses to news of the impending closure "really took me by surprise. This store stirs up a lot of feelings because this is where they go to meet their need."

He cited the financial toll of dwindling sales and the cost of necessary improvements among factors leading to his decision. "I always said I'd do this as long as I don't lose money," he said. "I don't know how to keep it going."

Posted on the Mysteries to Die For Bookstore website:

Mysteries to Die For is closing after a long and wonderful run of nineteen years. 

Thanks to all of you who have graced the store with your attendance and all of those special mail order customers who have supported the store over the years. 

We are humbled and appreciative of the countless e-mails, phone calls, and letters we have received in response to the news. 

The last day of business will be Saturday, July 28. 

Good-bye and Good Luck to all of you.