Bessie Smith's Grave

The 1920's blues singer Bessie Smith's famous song, "Gimme a Pigfoot and a Bottle of Beer," (Available on The Essential Bessie Smith)  is most appropriate for this posting as pork products have become increasingly popular in Philadelphia and this week marks the beginning of Philly Beer Week 2010.

Smith is buried along the outer edge of woodsy suburban Mount Lawn Cemetery in Darby, PA (on the southwest border of Philadelphia). Smith, known as the "Empress of the Blues," was a hero of Janis Joplin. After Smith's death in 1937 (the result of a high-speed automobile accident), her grave remained unmarked for a variety of reasons. In 1970, Janis Joplin had the tombstone you see here carved and placed on Smith's grave.

In 2002, my brother wanted to see the grave, which was near my house. We drove into the cemetery one day and circled around to the left where he thought the grave was. I parked my car and we both got out to begin our search. Immediately, four armed police helicopters appeared in circular formation above us, locked in the most threatening nose-down position you can imagine! I said to my brother, "You go look for the grave, I'll wait under the car."

The last time such a thing happened to me was when I was nipping a few flowers off Elizabeth Taylor's hedges outside her Beverly Hills home as a souvenir for my mom. But then that was only one helicopter. Bessie Smith warrants four? I realize that Smith was so popular in her heyday that 10,000 people came to her funeral, but why so much security now, 50 years later?

After bravely jumping in my car and speeding off, my brother and I found out that neither we nor Bessie Smith were the reason for the helicopters. The police were conducting a manhunt for two kidnappers who'd escaped into the woods bordering the cemetery. I guess they realized we were not those two guys and just let us drive off.

Cemetery Flood

My obcession with graveyards may have begun with a teenage dare. When I was fourteen (1972), Hurricane Agnes caused major flooding in Northeast Pennsylvania (or NEPA as they say). After sandbagging the Susquehanna River dike all day, the rising river water blew out of the street storm drains like geysers. This caused some minor flooding, but it wasn't enough to equalize the water pressure--the dike at the cemetery in the town of Forty-Fort blew out. Not only was the Wyoming Valley under sixteen feet of water for days, but the cemetery was gutted.

When the flood waters receeded, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers made some major repairs, facilitated a massive cleanup, and boarded up the cemetery. Rumors had it there were coffins everywhere! As a teenage boy, this is exactly the cool stuff you want to hear.

So after a couple weeks, residents were allowed back to their homes to facilitate their own massive cleanup. My cousin Albert and I wandered down to the cemetery, only to find 8-foot sheets of plywood attached to the existing wrought iron fencing. Hardly a deterrent, we went exploring. In not much time, we found a washed out space under one of the plywood sheets that was big enough for a boy to crawl under. Needles to say, that's what we did. Nothing could have prepared me for the stench!

As we walked around the grounds that day in the late June heat, who would've thought the experience would affect me for a lifetime? You had to mouth-breathe just to keep from passing out from the asault on the nasal passages. The fetid aroma was no doubt accentuated by the heat, but oddly, you couldn't smell it from outside the plywood fencing.

There were giant holes in the ground, with coffins and vaults sticking out of them every which way. These were either caskets that were not washed away or ones the Army had returned to the cemetery. Later, the disinterred coffins would be buried in a mass grave with a memorial marker. The dike was still non-existent, but the water level was back to normal, so the cemetery was an expanse of dry, baked mud. As we climbed through the mess toward the dike to see how high the river was, we passed a big oak tree with a casket propped up against it. The lid was open. I assumed it was empty and walked on by.

Moments later, Albert turned back around, let out a shriek, and threw up! I whipped around and saw that the casket was not empty! Inside was the partially decomposed body of a woman in a black gown, arms crossed over her heart, with two hunting arrows sticking out of her chest! Obviously some freakish archer had been there before us and used the corpse for target practice. Kind of wonder in retrospect, if the arrows were silver-tipped...

Did I photograph this atrocity? Of course not! But not because I'm above that sort of thing. At fourteen, I didn't carry my little Kodak 110 film camera everywhere I went but the experience certainly planted the seed for my interest in cemetery photography.

Art for the Cash Poor

This will be the 11th annual "Art for the Cash Poor" event sponsored by InLiquid in Philadelphia. Its a wild weekend of art, beer, live music, food, and people. Held in a ginormous remodeled warehouse in the Fishtown section (roughly 3rd and Girard), the festival draws thousands of people and is arguably the largest art-related event of its kind in the city. Why do they call it "Art for the Cash Poor?" Because the artists present (and there are scores of us) cannot charge more than $199 for any single piece of artwork.

I've participated for many years, selling my work, even before I became a member of the InLiquid artists collective. Its a great way to make new friends and to reestablish old relationships. It never ceases to amaze me that so many people have similar interests in cemeteries. People stop by to tell me their about their experiences in various cemeteries. Although many of these turn out to be in great places I may never get to like London's Highgate or Pere Lachaise in Paris, its always fun to hear the stories. I always write this info down, just in case I ever get there (heck, even my UPS guy has been to Pere Lachaise!).

Click here for more info on "Art for the Cash Poor"

Voices in the Cemetery

Many of the images I've photographed remind me of the experience acquiring the image. Sometimes, however, I was so scared that I never got the image!

I like to think that I'm not superstitious. However, I am susceptible to suggestion. One time I travelled to Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx (NYC) to shoot with my brother. I found the amazing life-sized statue at left (angels are the same size as us, right?) and photographed it. We ended up getting locked in, much to my brother's chagrin, but that's another story! After arriving home and processing the film, I found that somehow the film was grossly overexposed--useless. So I planned another trip a few months later, by myself, just to make photographs of this statue (one of those you see here)!

Not only that, but I scheduled my trip with the intent of being locked in the cemetery! The reason? The lighting is better at dusk. Photographers typically shoot at the edges of the day, in order for the sun to produce as much shadow as possible. Helps to create the illusion of a 3D image.

So I go to Woodlawn on the appointed day, spend a couple hours shooting around the cemetery, find the statue (which I've since titled, "End of Miles"), then hide and wait until the gates are closed (and locked). Having done this before, I didn't see a problem with scaling the 10-foot wrought iron gate to get out. (Also having done this before, I was prepared for the strange looks from passing motorists. I mean, in the North Bronx, I'm sure they thinking, "He's nuts! It's much safer inside the cemetery than out!").

When the setting sun was in the correct position, I made the photographs of the statue you see here. All that remained was to make my way through the cemetery to the front gate, scale it, then have a nice cold one at the Woodlawn el stop across the street.

On my way I stopped to photograph a statue. As I was looking through the viewfinder of my camera to line up the shot, I distinctly saw a long furry ringed tail disappear behind a bush! I left my camera on the tripod and walked over to, and around, the bush. Nothing! No hole, no animal. I could think of only one thing--The Bronx Zoo! What made this even more disturbing, was the deafening quiet of the cemetery.

Victorian Garden Cemeteries like Woodlawn were landscaped by architects in the 1800s with the purpose of maintaining contemplative serenity through floral beauty and silence. While in such an idyllic paradise, you simply cannot see or hear anything--not trains, planes, or automobiles! The silence is very much with you when you know you're the only person locked in the cemetery...

Already rattled from the tail sighting, I packed up my gear and continued (but this time briskly) walking toward the locked entrance gate. As I walked along, I passed a monument that had a statue of a woman with two children at her knee. I read the inscription as I passed--it was something like, "Dedicated to a mother who loved her children." As I said the word 'children' in my mind, there was a loud audible baby's cry! My blood froze as I ran for the gate! That statue is not the one I've included here--this one is simply for illustrative purposes. I was too scared to stop and photograph that one.

I've since discovered that the ransom money dropoff related to the famous Lindbergh baby kidnapping in 1932 occurred at this very gate!

More info on Lindbergh kidnapping

Sex and the City Cemetery

Sex and death. Freud believed them to be our driving forces, forces that coincide yet conflict. Why does the notion of having sex in a cemetery seem so adventurous yet prohibitive, so titillating yet taboo?

Humans seem to be simultaneously death phobic and sexually driven. Death and desire just seem to go together in our minds. Note, for example, all the sensually carved angels and semi-nude forms that adorn many cemeteries. Whether its the statuary, the solitude, or simply the thrill that motivates people, some like to have sex in cemeteries. Now, I'm not talking about sex in the car while in the cemetery. I'm talking down 'n' dirty, in the grass, on the wolf table, or on the mausoleum steps. I've stumbled upon skindiving couples a few times, and two of my friends who work as cemetery caretakers have had to ask some folks to please apply the brakes! One has had to ask people on numerous occasions to cease their nude photography sessions! Mainly its a respect thing. These are sacred grounds, and besides, visiting mourners certainly don't want to see trysting by the reflecting pool.

As humans, we're as obsessed with death as we are with sex, but in a less open way. The fear of death fascinates us, but we avoid it like, well, the plague. Can the act of having sex in a cemetery somehow privately, subconsciously, help us come to terms with our own mortality? Does getting boned in the boneyard put a more enjoyable face on death, this pleasurable experience? Think back on those sensual cemetery statues, they're more life-affirming than death-centric, aren't they? Sex in a cemetery, then, may reinforce in us a feeling of life, which really was the original intent of the architects of the early garden cemeteries (such cemeteries are almost always associated with cities, thus the title of this blog). The Victorians believed if death is portrayed as beautiful, perhaps it will lose its sting.

That said, if you've ever actually tried to have cemetery sex, you might have noticed that the environs can produce a certain, well, frisson of discomfort. Pleasurable to some, but downright distracting to others, making certain things, well, kind of ... impossible. If you try it, you're sure to see that its not as easy as you might think (from the physical and mental perspective)! This refers to nocturnal adventures, of course, daytime doesn't count. I mean during the day, you only risk getting caught; at night, you risk being eaten by zombies. And with regard to trespassing--let's just say that some people think its easier to get forgiveness than permission!

On the Road to the Necropolis

This blog is a reasonable facsimile of an article I had published in the Oct. 2004 issue of Weird New Jersey magazine. In the years I’ve been roaming around cemeteries, the first four were spent shooting angels. I bagged a good number of them by the time someone told me about this great cemetery that flanked the Parkway, near East Orange, NJ. So I made the trip.

They were right. The place was thick with angels. You couldn’t swing a cat without hitting one, as Mark Twain would say. During that visit, maybe in 2001, my head was turned from the saintly to the creepy. New Jersey certainly has its share of creepy, and many of them were here in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery.

Surrounded by innercity-ness, the large, yet quaint garden cemetery was punctuated by police cruisers and groundskeepers. Not atypical to find a cop or mailman lunching in a boneyard, but the sheer quantity of the cop cars at Holy Sepulchre was unusual.

A groundskeeper with a weedwhacker, working in the cemetery, stopped me and said “Don’t lose sight of your car.” One on a riding mower cut his engine and came over to me saying: “You know, I was held up at gunpoint here last year while on my mower …” Hence, the cop cars.


As I walked around shooting the necrotecture, the chief caretaker rolled up in his pickup and wanted to know my business. (With regard to photographing in cemeteries, I've long felt that its much easier to get forgiveness than permission!) After I explained, he was ok with my shooting, but added: “These damn film crews from New York come in here to make movies… They run around knocking over tombstones.”

The images accompanying this text were captured on that day (in 2001) and remain some of my favorites. I’ve continued to feed my morbid fascination at other cemeteries around the country, but few images match the intensity of this one that I call "The Bishop." The relief was mounted over the entrance to an ornate mausoleum. Years later, because people would ask me where I made the image, I Googled the cemetery and found it to be actually nicknamed “Bishop’s Cemetery.” Go figure. Must be more to the story, but that’s where I run out of talent.

Tomb of the Voodoo Queen

Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans, died in 1881. Her remains lie in its St. Louis Cemetery No.1, close to downtown. Supernatural things aside, New Orleans has one of the most dangerous collection of cemeteries in the world. Take a look at this video of Laveau's tomb, and you'll see why. Note how the smallish tombs seem to make up a small city of buildings? These tombs are about 7 feet high, and very close together, allowing for narrow walkways for theives to hide. 

You can easily get lost in one of New Orleans' many cemeteries, get robbed, and left for dead. No wonder tours are recommended as opposed to strolling about alone--as I was doing one day. Its creepy enough in St. Louis Cemetery #1 in broad daylight (wouldn't catch me in there at night!), but when I found Laveau's tomb, I was surprised to see the burnt candles and Mardi Gras beads strewn about and hanging off the roof. Obviously the faithful come here to pray (but for what...?). I grabbed a ring of beads as a souvenir for my daughter and took some pictures.

When it comes to spooks, I've always felt that the more you believe in them, the more they'll try to get you. Therefore, I don't give them the chance. (For instance, I once had a brother-in-law who experienced sleep paralysis, more commonly believed to be caused by a nightmarish demon sitting on your chest . Me? I simply refuse to believe in such things so they won't happen to me. I choose to not make myself susceptible.

Marie Laveau's grave

Imagine my surprise, then, as I heard a rustling behind the Voodoo Queen's tomb. No other people about, as far as I knew. I walked along in front of the tomb to see if something (or someone) was between it and the next tomb. A the same moment I realized I had forgotten which direction the exit was, I saw the weeds between the tombs moving toward me! Before I had time to react, an emaciated feral cat appeared out of the weeds, bared its fangs and began hissing at me!

I thought it best at that point to discreetly drop the Mardi Gras beads and back away. It was then that I saw the litter of emaciated kittens behind the protective mother. She was simply warding off an intruder. Very effective technique.

As I made my way out of the graveyard, I came upon a hose spigot attached to a pipe coming out of the ground. Must be for maintenance workers. Since it was hotter than hell (pun intended) that day and I was totally parched, I stuck my mouth on the spigot, opened the valve, and got a mouthful of salt water!


For more information on Marie Laveau: http://www.travelnola.com/halloweenneworleans/marielaveautomb/

For more information on nightmare demons:
http://www.deliriumsrealm.com/delirium/articleview.asp?Post=78