The Beauty Of Angel Headstones And Grave Markers

By Timothy Tree

She watches over the grave of someone that you have loved dearly. While the world sleeps the tombstone grave marker angel is always on duty. She seems to understand what you feel and is ever present in the cemetery. The stone angel is much more than a marker, she is an eternal statement of love, loss, hope, strength, and almost every emotion you can conjure in your mind.

Some people choose not to purchase headstones, and this may not be the best of choices. Without something marking a burial site it may soon be forgotten. It is very difficult for anyone to be remembered if there is no monument or marker. That is one reason why many people decide to have some type of headstone.

Cemeteries are special places and can stir all kinds of strong feelings and emotions. This is where many people go to get closer to those that have passed on. The time can be good for the soul and allow for reflection and healing. Yet, it can be very frustrating if you have to spend much time searching for a grave.

Headstones are nothing to take lightly because of the purpose they provide. For example, some people enjoy simplicity in life but life can sometimes be complicated. After all, an intricately designed and created angelic headstone says a great deal about the person that it represents. A plain and simple marker is almost like a blank piece of paper.

For thousands of years, angels have been symbolic of goodness and mankind's roots into another world. Even those that do not believe in angels must admit they have some kind of power that is not understood. If you think about the possibility of angels looking out for you it can be a calming and satisfying experience, and make the difference between happiness and despair.

The universal appeal of angels cannot be denied. They are some of the most popular and accepted symbols of eternity and hope in a hereafter. If you choose to have an angelic theme for a tombstone the possibilities are numerous and only the imagination is your limit.

Maybe you are not currently thinking about death or the loss of someone dear. No matter, death is a subject that everyone must face some day whether you want to or not. Choosing the right Tombstone Grave marker is very important to millions of people and an angelic theme can demonstrate the good things one has done.

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Best Documentaries On Netflix, On The Installment Plan

By Mickey Jhonny

The growth in popularity of Netflix has been a real boon to documentary fans. With some 1000 docs on offer, deciding what to watch can be a bit daunting. I want to suggest that you give a try to the 7 Up Series. I can't guarantee that every single person reading this will love it. But, honestly, if you don't at least give it a shot, you might rob yourself of one of the most unique film experiences possible.

The 7 Up series is both a moving bit of documentary entertainment and at the same time a study in sociological reflection. It wasn't included on our list of the top 5 of the best documentaries on Netflix only because it really is in a different category.

If you're a fan of the gangster story, you can appreciate the difficulty in attempting to compare a great, one off, film like The Godfather or Goodfellas, with an equally great long arch TV serial like the Sopranos or Boardwalk Empire. There is a completely different experience involved. The long story arch reveals itself more slowly, with more detail and nuance. This is the nature of the difference between this series and your standard documentary.

It was 1964, the very threshold of what has come to be called the 60s, when British TV producers brought together 14 children from a diverse range of backgrounds for purposes of making a documentary on them. At least, it was the relevant diversity from the perspective of the producers, at the time: primarily diversity in gender, race and economic background.

The explicitly stated premise of the original program was to get a glimpse into Britain of the year 2000. The assumption was that the life conditions under which they began, would determine the direction of their lives into the future. The first installment ended with a promise to catch up with them again in the new millennium.

However, there was a young researcher on that original installment who was to go on to have an extremely successful career as a film director, working on a range of material stretching from the Gorillas in the Mist to 007. Michael Apted had a different idea about the potential of that project begun in 1964. Instead of waiting for the 21st century, he took his cameras back to catch up with the kids seven years later, when they where 14. And he's gone back every seven years ever since. The result has been one of the most extraordinary cinematic documents of all time.

At the time of writing, the newest installment has recently been released; in the U.S. it was in January 2013. In this installment, the kids of 1964 have turned 56 years old. It is a strange and compelling journey for those with the patience and curiosity to see it through.

It's true that not everyone finds it engaging TV. The less than enthusiastic have criticized it for being too slow and also too mundane. The protest is often along the lines: these people are no more interesting than my friends and acquaintances. Why bother with a TV show about people I already know and whose lives I can watch without the telly, thanks?

For the fans of the series, however, such criticism seems to be entirely missing the whole point. What is remarkable about this series is the transformation of the mundane into the sublime by turning the spotlight upon it. The heroism and humor, the small personal triumphs and tragedies of all our lives, are somehow dignified and ennobled as we watch these 14 people struggle through their own lives.

When you think about it, what we have here is the original reality TV show. The difference is that in contrast to the circuses going by that name, today, this reality touches something that is deeply, and at times heartbreakingly, real. Those who have become hooked on the series inevitably come to feel personal attachment with some of the kids-adults as their struggle through their own personal life challenges.

Yet, through it all, there is an irony underlying the entire enterprise. The idea that the series is capturing real lives; the original assumption that socio-economic origins would be charted through the years as determining life choices, all seems to have overlooked the observer principle.

The observer principle is often, and I might add mistakenly, attributed to the physicist Heisenberg. There's no need though of a confused idea about sub-atomic physics to recognize that knowing their being watched will have an effect on how people act.

Though it's less famous and trendy, the appropriate reference here is actually the Hawthorne experiments, conducted at a Western Electric plant in the 1920-30s. The sociologists studying the behaviors of the plant workers finally came to recognize that the very experience of being studied was changing the workers' behaviors.

It turns out - and is this really a surprise - that when people are conscious of being observed they mold their behavior in ways suited to make a desired impression upon the observer. Without access to some kind of parallel universe, we can obviously never really know how the lives of these 14 people might have gone in other directions, led by the making of different choices, if they weren't (and didn't expect to be) visited every 7 years by television crews. It doesn't though strike me as especially far fetched to conceive there might have been some significant differences.

In some ways, even more that the genuinely moving story of the 14, coming of age, it is that conundrum which most intrigues me as I watch the series. It is a remarkable document that reveals almost as much about the hubris of the filmmakers as the lives of their subjects.

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If you're a big time documentary fan, you'll want to follow Mickey Jhonny's work at the Best Documentaries on Netflix blog. Also, for a good time, give a read to his Top 5 List for all time Best Zombie Movies .