A few resources to go along with my Trampoline Hall lecture, "So You Have to Give a Eulogy…"
Toronto Homeless Memorial
Started by activist Bonnie Briggs Opens in a new window a few decades back, the Toronto Homeless Memorial is a public service, held on the second Tuesday of each month at noon outside the south door of the Church of the Holy Trinity (map Opens in a new window - and yes, it's surrounded by the Eaton Centre).
The service includes adding the names of the newly deceased to the memorial itself Opens in a new window.
You can donate to the Memorial through the Church, but from what I can tell, it's appreciated as much or more if you simply attend in person or through their facebook live stream Opens in a new window.
The Memorial is currently lead by Rev. Pamela Trondson. She is a really lovely, approachable person. She first lead the service in December, 2021. That month, 34 names were added. I'm sure she'll answer any questions you have about the Memorial if you contact her through the Church Opens in a new window.
Advice
What to do
- In 5 minutes or less,
- tell stories about the deceased,
- that for the people there, ring true.
Other things you might do
- Check in with the funeral director/officiant so you know…
- where/when to go, and
- if someone else will also be speaking.
- (If so, you might want to check in with them, too.)
- Do a reading instead (poetry, lyrics, scripture, whatever floats your boat).
- Decline - if you don’t have the resources to do this, it is absolutely okay to say so ahead of time.
- Ask someone to read it over ahead of time.
- Ask someone to be your support if you end up struggling (check in with someone ahead of time and say, “if I lose my shit, you’ll come get me, right?”)
- Gently acknowledge how everyone is doing.
- Maybe tell a joke (easiest laughs you’ll ever get?)
- Completely fucking bail at the last second.
Books I read on the topic that I thought were really good
Okay, that's really it, but this one was fun:
Appendix 1: Failed Lecture Topics
I spent months figuring out what I wanted to talk about. I had a lot of bad ideas for lectures, and, since I think failure is interesting, I thought I'd put a few of them here:
This city hates you
Let's take over a small city. Cambridge, Ontario, pop 140k, has mayoral elections decided by <2000 votes. This is roughly the capacity of the Danforth City Music Hall. Think of how few people we'd need to wrangle to be able to sway the fortunes of any city or town that's smaller than that.
Typically, DIY shipping container homes Ontario cost around $130 – $175 per sq ft Opens in a new window. Those of us who work remotely can do so (possibly building our own ISP Opens in a new window), the rest of us will grow high-margin crops, and produce value-added goods - black garlic cream cheese, lavender ice cream, pickled microgreens, just off the top of my head. But you know what they say, when the gold rush starts, sell shovels, so we should be oh fuck I hate this I hate this so much.
Linda Ronstadt is a fucking Queen who deserves a moment oh wait I just heard her on The Last of Us I guess it's happening
Go listen to Canciones de Mi Padre Opens in a new window, it's a damn masterpiece.
The 20hz messageboard / Stillepost
...and other Toronto Music Scene things Opens in a new window facebook killed (posters, zines, show photography, small blogs, etc) (possibility of shift towards discord / mastodon?)
Defang the Police: TWO UNRELATED tv shows where ENTIRE PREMISE is that the Toronto Police team up with a fucking vampire.
Forever Knight Opens in a new window (1992-1996) and Blood Ties Opens in a new window (2007-2008). Weird, right?
AC/DC: Bisexual band or the most bisexual band?
Sundowning, pre-industrial sleep patterns and their impact on "witch crazes".
I couldn't prove any of this when I took "RLG337 Witchcraft" at U of T, and I certainly can't prove it now.
The FBI's Highway Serial Killings Initiative
Truck driving has been characterized as the ideal profession for a serial killer, with the FBI going so far as to form a task force specifically to track them Opens in a new window. Are they all "lone wolves"? Or is there an underground society of... nope, I don't want to do true crime. Just nah.
Forgotten relics of gritty Canadian youth programming in the mid-90s
Little Criminals, Straight Up, Liberty Street, the Odyssey, Jonovision, Twitch City. (Was this a legacy product of the Toronto New Wave filmmaking movement?) I… just really liked these shows.
Odd birds of the Upper Ottawa Valley
Originally inspired by this killer canada.gov.ca post Opens in a new window (aren't they all, though?), I wanted to speak to some of the very odd characters I knew, or heard tell of, growing up in the Upper Ottawa Valley. It's a strange, witchy place (seriously, there are witches), now increasingly populated by Mennonite families who wish they were throwing it back as hard as some of the 4th-generation farmers, Holy Well wishers, off-grid draft dodgers on pirate radio, and all the Beach Kids with accents thicker and stickier than biker hash.
But time travel is more art than science, and I got scared off this one. I did get some beautiful letters from my mom about some of the sweet oddball bachelors, refugees from the lumber sleighs, and a book about the Roma peoples who rode around in caravans. Also, a book about the last hanging in Renfrew County (in the 1950s!) but the cover's so gruesome Opens in a new window, even (especially?) in black & white, I have it wrapped in brown craft paper. I didn't have the heart to ask my wonderful High School World Religions teacher if he's related to the guy on the cover (he definitely is).