Funeral homes are rarely businesses you associate with fun surprises, but that’s changing in a big, big way: This funeral home is offering the chance to score a limited holographic prayer card of your deceased loved one with every wake.

Simply brilliant. Bringing a little Pokémon inspiration to the wake experience is a truly thoughtful touch!

At Rossi Funeral Home in Scotch Plains, NJ, wakes are more than an opportunity to say goodbye—they’re a chance for grieving families to collect a limited edition holographic prayer card featuring a photo of the dearly departed with a rainbow sheen and tasteful foil finish. These shimmering, commemorative mementos constitute one in every 30 prayer cards, meaning only a few lucky mourners per service will draw one from the stack next to the wake’s guest book. Aside from traditional elements like a photo, prayer, and lifespan dates, the shiny remembrance keepsakes will also list the departed’s signature attack and energy type (Fire, Water, Psychic, Grass, etc.).

“The Pokémon card model allows us to incentivize and reward the bereaved for making time to pay their respects to the dead,” explained Frank Rossi Jr., the owner of Rossi Funeral Home, who had the idea to turn prayer cards into rare collectibles after seeing an Internet video of Costco shoppers brawl over packs of Pokémon cards. “Since debuting the holographic prayer cards, we’ve not only seen an uptick in attendance at all wakes, but also in fights among mourners eager to nab a holographic prayer card and sell it to other friends and family members of the deceased for a profit.”

Amazing. What a meaningful gesture to grieving families.

Wakes are difficult, emotional times for people who’ve lost a loved one, which is why it’s so heartwarming to see Rossi Funeral Home celebrate the dead by making their prayer cards exciting, aesthetically unique collector’s items. Other funeral homes take note, because this is how you do remembrance!

“The promise of the open web was colonized by internet giants. But the power of LLMs and agentic coding means we can start to take it back. We can build customized, personal software for ourselves that does what we want.”

Time for a new #FreeThread. I was reading about an improbably excellent day for a baseball player. (Relax, non-sports folks, isn't a sports theme.) It reminded me of Jarvis Cocker from Pulp, when asked about the band's legendary 1995 set at Glastonbury. He said something to the effect of how rare and fortunate it is to fully understand as it is happening that you are in the middle of the greatest day of your life. What was a perfect day you had that you knew and appreciated even in the moment?

The algorithm runs on urgency. Everything is breaking, escalating, collapsing, and everything is imminent. The algorithm rewards panic because panic keeps you scrolling, and scrolling keeps you clicking, and clicking keeps the machine fed. After a few years of this, a lot of people are walking around in a state of low-grade chronic dread they've stopped noticing because it's become the baseline. That's not a natural state. That's an induced one. A garden operates on a completely different clock. Seeds germinate when they're ready. Soil builds over months and years. A fruit tree takes five seasons to hit its stride and doesn't care what the Fed decided last Wednesday. A primer on growing food in the Northern Hemisphere from Gold and Geopolitics.

Iran is blockading the Strait of Hormuz. Urea exports out of the Persian Gulf are non-existent. Sulfur - the unglamorous backbone of phosphate fertilizer production - is just... sitting there. Planting season is closing fast. The global nitrogen supply chain, already under strain since Russia's 2022 export restrictions, is looking at yet another shock. And China halted key fertilizer exports until at least August. I know, I know. This sounds like the opening of yet another doom piece. But bear with me. The reason I bring this up isn't to scare you into stockpiling tinned beans in a bunker. Although at this point in time: why not? It's actually much simpler than that: food prices are going to go up. They're going to go up whether the war stops today or drags on into autumn. ...You can either watch that happen, or you can do something about it.

Today's CanCon: Old Man Luedecke Twice JUNO-winning and Polaris prize nominated Nova Scotia musician Chris Luedecke sings song with only his trusty banjo and/or guitar.

Some favourites: Easy Money I Quit My Job The Early Days (if you're a parent, this one is gonna tug at your heartstrings) Yodelady The Death of Truth (written about the passing of his father, the person with whom he could talk politics) He's touring Eastern Canada right now; Shepherd and I saw him last Thursday. He is a great raconteur in between songs; he even bonded with Tig Notaro on a flight some years ago over their kids. Tig invited him to open her show.

Elke week legt Annemiek Leclaire een lezersvraag voor aan deskundigen. Deze week: hoe krijg ik mijn 5-jarige wat vrolijker?

Vanwege premier Orbáns afbraak van de rechtsstaat bevroor Brussel een deel van de Europese fondsen voor Hongarije. De oppositie mikt komende zondag op winst met de belofte dat het EU-geld onder een ander bewind weer gaat stromen.

Voormalig hoofdonderzoeker van de ombudsman blikt terug op de totstandkoming van een kritisch rapport over het gemeentelijke Bureau Integriteit. Burgemeester Halsema raakte daarover in conflict met de ombudsman. „Arrogantie nekt de ambtelijke organisatie.”

En toen lag de vriendin die een afstapje niet gezien had ineens in het Dr. Sarphatihuis, een Amsterdams verpleeghuis. Ze was vol goede moed en schreef vanaf de eerste dag de namen van de verzorgenden en hun land van herkomst op: Kameroen, Eritrea, Suriname, Syrië, Oekraïne, een doodenkele kwam ergens uit Nederland.

De komende dagen is het stralend weer in Nederland, verwacht Weeronline. Vooral dinsdag is de lucht grotendeels blauw en ook de middagtemperatuur gaat omhoog tot 15 tot 17 graden en in het zuiden tot 18. Woensdag is het nog zachter met 17 tot 19 graden en in het zuiden wordt het bij 20 graden de eerste warme dag van het jaar.

De nachten zijn nog wel koud. Vroeg in de ochtend is het 1 tot 5 graden en in het noordoosten mogelijk nog wat kouder.

Ook donderdag wordt het nog vrij warm, met in het zuiden en zuidoosten kans op 20 graden. Er zijn zonnige perioden, maar ook velden hoge bewolking. Later donderdagmiddag of aan het begin van de avond neemt de bewolking toe en vanuit het westen trekken dan buien over het land. In het zuidoosten blijft het tot het begin van de avond vrij warm.

NEW YORK (ANP) - Beleggers op Wall Street deden het maandag bij de opening voorzichtig aan, na een eerste positieve week die een verliesreeks van vijf weken doorbrak. De hoop op een spoedig einde van de oorlog tussen de VS en Iran ondersteunde de handel.

Na een lang paasweekend opende de Dow Jones-index 0,1 procent lager op 46.439 punten. De S&P 500-index won 0,1 procent op 6589 punten en techgraadmeter Nasdaq steeg 0,3 procent tot 21.952 punten. De S&P 500, de graadmeter van de vijfhonderd grootste Amerikaanse bedrijven, herstelde vorige week 3,4 procent. Ook de Dow en Nasdaq gingen omhoog op weekbasis, met respectievelijk 3 en 4,4 procent.

Volgens de Amerikaanse nieuwssite Axios bespreken vertegenwoordigers van de VS en Iran en een groep regionale bemiddelaars de voorwaarden voor een mogelijk staakt-het-vuren van 45 dagen. Dit zou kunnen leiden tot een permanent einde van de oorlog.

DEN BOSCH (ANP) - De hockeysters van SCHC (De Stichtsche) hebben in Den Bosch voor het eerst in het bestaan van de club de Euro Hockey League gewonnen. De ploeg uit Bilthoven verraste in de finale titelverdediger Den Bosch: 1-0.

Yibbi Jansen was in de 45e minuut trefzeker voor SCHC via haar wapen, de strafcorner. Ze sloeg de bal loeihard in het doel.

Frédérique Matla van Den Bosch kreeg vlak voor tijd nog een kans om via een strafcorner gelijk te maken, maar haar bal werd gestuit.

When we think of somewhere we’ve been, what are the first things to come to mind? Perhaps there are memorable smells, a sense of other people being around, or a particular quality of light. But what if we remembered landscapes and experiences through plants? For Hillary Waters Fayle, flower petals, seeds, and foliage combine into a kind of album of various places, which she then uses to create bold cyanotypes.

The artist has long worked with botanicals and other organic materials, notably embroidering foraged leaves and feathers with meticulous geometric designs. With the series Portraits of Place, which she’s been pursuing for the past six years, Fayle precisely arranges individual petals and leaves into intricate, symmetrical, mandala-like compositions on acrylic.

She starts by collecting and drying botanicals from specific locations, such as Grace Farms Foundation in New Canaan, Connecticut, or Maymont Park in Richmond, Virginia. These are then laid onto watercolor paper that’s been painted with UV-sensitive iron salts. After being left out in the sun, these result in the bright blue cyanotypes that chronicle the outlines—perhaps one could even say the spirit—of the distinctive layouts.

“The way these portraits illustrate a very particular place and time via botany can be a way to define the relationship that the people of that place have with the land—almost like a modern-day florilegium,” Fayle tells Colossal. She continues:

All of these pieces are so different and special to me, but it has been particularly meaningful to make portraits of areas that are going to change drastically in the near future, either from development or rising sea levels, fire, etc. It feels like a way of preserving and honoring the land and all that is present there right now. 

Flowers and plants symbolize the natural evolution of particular spaces, such as a gardener adding new bulbs or birds depositing seeds. They symbolize the nature of seasons and life cycles, emphasizing a relationship that is simultaneously enduring and ephemeral. See more on the artist’s Instagram.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Hillary Waters Fayle Creates ‘Portraits of Place’ from Seeds, Foliage, and Petals appeared first on Colossal.

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

date stamped on slide, June 1969

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

De automobilist die maandagochtend twee personen op een fatbike aanreed en daarna op de vlucht sloeg, is maandagmiddag door de politie opgepakt. Het gaat om een 27-jarige man uit Rotterdam.

The pro-Kremlin tabloid published what it openly described as an “un-Christian” interview with a psychic who claimed to have summoned Zhirinovsky’s spirit by burning a 100-ruble note.