Honouring the Dead by the Living?

When I was unpacking boxes from my recent house move, I came across a program from the first 'Boomerang' Festival held in 2013 and it had a picture of the recently deceased Dr G Yunupingu on the front cover of the program, as he was more or less the headline act of the festival.

I loved his music and while I didn't see G play 'Boomerang' (I only went the Friday and Sunday of the festival) I was right in front of him when he opened for Bob Dylan at Bluesfest years ago -
Bob Dylan and Byron Bay
They are fond memories for me, as I had my youngest teenage son with me at the time, too.
So, I'm sure it's a day both of us will never forget for the rest of our lives ... unless we come down with Alzheimer's like my poor old recently deceased dad did, then we'll be flat out remembering what we had for breakfast and who our sons are most of the time. 
I decided that I would write up a post to honour the memory of G, but then I started seeing all of the news stories (like the one below posted on my birthday, ironically enough) were blanking out his face, because of Australian Aboriginal avoidance practices.

Dr G Yunupingu: Family and record label on the music legend's last days

Now I had a dilemma to ponder.

I couldn't really put a picture of G on the cover of the program in a current post showing his face, but at the same time I didn't want to pixelate his face out either, so I grabbed a round mirror and covered his face with that, so I could show the program in a current post without showing his face, and at the same time make an artistic statement that most of our fears and superstitions surrounding death are nothing but reflections of the living's fears of death and dying, more than anything else.

I realize when I look into the mirror of the picture at the top of this post that a lot of things in me and my life have died, as well, since that festival.

Maybe that's what nostalgia is all about for the individual, just looking back to recapture the things that were alive in our lives at the time and now no longer are?

I noticed that on the back of the program was an advertisement for the then upcoming 2014 Bluesfest featuring Gregg Allman who is now deceased, also.

I went to the 2014 Bluesfest, but I never saw Gregg Allman play.
In fact, I had never even heard of him back then, and still don't know a lot about him now.

I notice that Gregg was 69 when he passed away this year, the same age David Bowie reached when he passed away, and they both died from complications from liver cancer.

Blackstar

Something happened on the day he died
Spirit rose a metre then stepped aside
Somebody else took his place, and bravely cried
(I’m a blackstar, I’m a star star, I’m a blackstar)

I can’t answer why (I’m not a gangster)
But I can tell you how (I’m not a flam star)
We were born upside-down (I’m a star star)
Born the wrong way ‘round (I’m not a white star)
(I’m a blackstar
I’m not a gangster
I’m a blackstar, I’m a blackstar

I've not heard any of those songs off Gregg's 1988 album 'Just Before the Bullets Fly', but in light of the recent events in Las Vegas just months after Gregg's passing that track listing almost sounds like the soundtrack for 2017.
The Harvey That We Didn't See Coming in 2017?

'Thorn and a Wild Rose'?!

But I digress ... as usual.

The real reason I wrote this post though, after nearly giving up the thought of writing a post trying to honour G's life, was to point out the near impossibility of trying to comply with wishes and customs to blank out the face the deceased from previous posts of him written while he was still living in the flesh.
So, without trying to be disrespectful, even though in a way I guess it is, I won't be blanking out any previous images of past posts that I have written on this blog, but I have placed this warning pictured below permanently at the top of my blog's sidebar.

I will of course though blank out G's face on any future posts that I may write about him, but I won't be touching any old posts he was mentioned in, sorry.

And I was thinking what happens when David Gulpilil passes away?
It's going to be impossible to blank out his images that are scattered throughout the world.

Plus, I've just written a post about him, and I won't be altering or removing any past images of David from the blog.
He Knows No Other World . . . Storm Boy

Bob Dylan at the 2011 Byron Bay Bluesfest

The irony though in all of this was when I saw Dylan play down in Byron Bay, it was Bob who didn't want his photo taken that night, so much so, that he had the side screens turned off during his gig.
I had never seen an artist do that before at any concert venue.
Luckily for me that my son wanted to be down near the front, otherwise we would never have "seen" him at all ... and snapped a photo of him, as well;-)
Life is a mystery and death is history (as well as a mystery), I say.
”But Dylan’s Not Dead” ”Oh ... Isn’t He?”