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Mary M's avatar

The greedy peasant on TikTok does a whole month dedicated to cemeteries in September known as Cemtember. https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSjLnGja2/

We have an old cemetery in our neighbourhood so I did a little tour around it last month. Found a secret non Christian area that I need to go back and explore further. It’s on the other side of a gully and I didn’t have time to get over there that day. But I’ll be back.

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Melissa Joulwan's avatar

Thank you for the heads-up on Cemtember (what a fun name!).

I love that you went exploring in your neighborhood cemetery. Please report back if you go to the secret non-Christian area!

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Jessica Grosman's avatar

The Dead Writers podcast is amazing! And as a side-note, co-host Brock Clarke is currently my daughter’s college professor - I wish I could be a fly in the wall during that class!!!

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Melissa Joulwan's avatar

Whoa, so cool!

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Stefanie Schulenberg's avatar

Another fantastic episode, and I love cemeteries, especially the really old ones with magnificent trees!.My mum used to take me for walks on cemeteries as a little girl to "pet the flowers" (very gently, no pulling). "The Woman in White" is a book I had wanted to read for a long time; will start with that one. And I can imagine that Vyšehrad is tremendously beautiful and mystical right now. Enjoy your walks there!

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Melissa Joulwan's avatar

I'm glad you liked this one! It turned out to be so much different than I thought it would be — and/but it was a good experience. Cathartic!

I love that you went to the cemetery to pet the flowers. What a cool idea!

When I was in, maybe 6th or 7th grade (?), one of our classes went on a field trip to a very old historical cemetery near my hometown, and we did tombstone rubbings with tracing paper and charcoal. It was a neat experience, and I kind of want to do that again!

The Woman in White is great... and can get a little bogged down in a few parts, so set expectations accordingly. It's really good, but, you know, 19th century, so...

XO

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Lydia's avatar

This Bluesky thread on (mostly Catholic) theology about the dead and their continued existence in people's lives seems relevant to share here https://bsky.app/profile/jayhulmepoet.bsky.social/post/3l77hbwkpoi2g as does a rec for female werewolf movie Ginger Snaps. Ghost-loving romance readers might give the novel Rules for Ghosting a try (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/736235/rules-for-ghosting-by-shelly-jay-shore/). None of the ghosts are love interests (alas), but I'm a super picky reader and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

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Melissa Joulwan's avatar

Thank you for all the recommendations! Dave and I just added Ginger Snaps and Ginger Snaps 2 to our Halloween movie list. Maybe we'll watch it tomorrow night! It looks really fun.

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Lydia's avatar

I haven't seen the sequel, so I'll be interested to hear your thoughts on it if you wanna share

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Melissa Joulwan's avatar

I'll definitely let you know! We watch the movie reviews by Chris Stuckman a lot, and he talked about Ginger Snaps recently — and said the sequel is fun, too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzW5ZwB5jkg

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Michael Jensen's avatar

Cemeteries are the BEST! And Prague's in October are, well, sublime. (And thank you for the shout out!)

I'm about to head out for my afternoon walk and listen to the latest ep!

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Melissa Joulwan's avatar

We walk in Vyšehrad almost every morning, and it's just spectacular. You must come back so we can hang out up there!

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Ericka's avatar

I love walking through cemeteries and in fact just went through Grove Street Cemetery by the Yale University campus this past weekend (paid my repects to Noah Webster.) Two books I've loved were Fresh Water for Flowers (I think I want her job) and The Graveyard Book. I look forward to checking your titles out!

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