{"id":4324,"date":"2013-07-19T15:33:58","date_gmt":"2013-07-19T20:33:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/citings\/?p=4324"},"modified":"2015-10-13T13:44:51","modified_gmt":"2015-10-13T18:44:51","slug":"death-cafe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/2013\/07\/19\/death-cafe\/","title":{"rendered":"Death Makes a Lively Topic"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>
Photo by Mathias Klang via flickr.com.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If you pack enough people and conversations in the right space\u2014and add a hefty dose of coffee\u2014they\u2019re bound to start brewing creative energy for all kind of thinkers, artists, writers, and even sociologists. But in such lively groupings, what happens when the patrons all start talking about death?<\/p>\n

In a recent op-ed for The Boston Globe<\/em><\/a>, Alex Beam stops by a \u201cDeath Cafe\u201d\u2014 a gathering pioneered by Swiss sociologist Bernard Crettaz<\/a>. In these informal salons, people meet to share their thoughts about shuffling off the mortal coil. The Death Cafes aren\u2019t about providing a support group, but letting attendees mull over just one topic we don\u2019t often discuss. By sharing their perspectives, members break the social norms of small talk and get a fulfilling and genuine interaction in a public space.<\/p>\n

Was the experience worthwhile? Absolutely. At least we weren\u2019t talking about suburban real estate prices, Baby Boomers\u2019 endless litany of health \u201cconcerns,\u201d or who\u2019s going to buy the Globe. Those subjects, it is fair to say, bore me to death.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you pack enough people and conversations in the right space\u2014and add a hefty dose of coffee\u2014they\u2019re bound to start brewing creative energy for all kind of thinkers, artists, writers, and even sociologists. But in such lively groupings, what happens when the patrons all start talking about death? In a recent op-ed for The Boston […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1893,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,33],"tags":[19932,23856,23857,3175],"class_list":["post-4324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-health","tag-conversation","tag-crettaz","tag-death-cafe","tag-norms"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1893"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4324"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4328,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4324\/revisions\/4328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}