Death be not proud, but it does pretty good slapstick

Max Ritvo, a promising poet, spent half his life battling a rare form of cancer. He lost a few weeks ago, but with an interesting perspective of things to not come:

Justin Boening: Dying is hilarious, but why? 

Max Ritvo: Well, first of all there’s the physical comedy aspect. When you die, first you go floppier than you’ve ever been, and then you rigor mortize into an inhumanly rigid little capsule. Your mouth flaps open and your eyes roll up in a very goofy way. You turn blue like Violet Beauregarde in the Willy Wonka movie. 

Then your loved ones put you in a box with no TV, no snacks—just you in a box like you’re a packaged-up Buzz Lightyear toy. Then worms eat you. You’re a human, the biggest baddest apex predator and then you get eaten by worms, which you use as bait to catch the animals you actually want to murder. (Unless you’re a vegetarian, in which case, good job, but still, worms eat you, which is ironic.) Then you’re a skeleton, and skeletons are funny looking. They always smile and their eyes, or eye-holes as it were, are huge like anime eyes. Unless you’re cremated, and then you’re literally turned into protein powder. Which I’d argue is even funnier. 

Death is also hilarious because uncomfortably long silences are hilarious. Andy Kaufman, Tim Heidecker, there are genius comedians whose entire careers are built on uncomfortable silences that resolve in underwhelming utterances...

Ritvo's first collection of poems will be published in November.