Our classroom discussion of cemeteries as festive gathering places, prompted by Neil Gaiman's
The Graveyard Book, inspired me to unearth these photos of Jim Morrison's grave in Pere Lachaise in Paris as it looked during my first visit in 1991.
Note the perpetual crowd of celebrants, the offerings left by visitors, and the layers of graffiti on every hard surface for yards around, including all the neighboring tombs.
Eventually the neighbors' living relatives complained loudly enough that the city cracked down on all this. Now such gatherings are prohibited, and all the graffiti had been scoured off or painted over by my 2003 visit.
Of all the graffiti I saw, my favorite was this, hard to read in the photo: "Don't spend all your life sitin' [sic] on Jim Morrison's grave."
Note the perpetual crowd of celebrants, the offerings left by visitors, and the layers of graffiti on every hard surface for yards around, including all the neighboring tombs.
Eventually the neighbors' living relatives complained loudly enough that the city cracked down on all this. Now such gatherings are prohibited, and all the graffiti had been scoured off or painted over by my 2003 visit.
Of all the graffiti I saw, my favorite was this, hard to read in the photo: "Don't spend all your life sitin' [sic] on Jim Morrison's grave."
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