Astronaut Suicides

This darkly absurd photo series stars a spacesuit-clad astronaut dramatically attempting to kill himself after reading about the end and last hurrah of NASA’s shuttle program in the newspaper. Portland, Oregon-based Neil Dacosta’s Astronaut Suicides features wrist slashing, car gassing, pill chugging… You know, the classics. Read more »

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BBC to Air First Real Suicide on Broadcast TV

Today, BBC Two will screen a documentary with writer Terry Pratchett who is considering assisted suicide after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. In Choosing to Die, he travels to Switzerland’s Dignitas clinic where a 71-year-old motor-neurone sufferer drinks a cocktail of toxins and dies in his wife’s arms. Read more »

Attempted Mass Suicide at a Russian Prison

Over the weekend, 65 prisoners in Russia’s Southern Irkutsk Region prison simultaneously slit their wrists and gored their stomachs in protest after being threatened with a group transfer to СИЗО-1, a type of central isolator alike to the one Voina artist Oleg Vorotnikov is awaiting trial for a protest action. Read more »

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Japan’s Suicide Forest: Another Lucrative Yakuza Operation

50 to 100 Japanese commit suicide in the Aokigahara Forest at the base of Mt. Fuji a year. The authorities do an annual sweep only, so the Yakuza pay homeless to rob the corpses for them. See the whole twisted doc short here. Read more »

Suicide Jumpers Come to NYC Looking for Fame

People who commit suicide—like Tyler Clementi—don’t just jump off the city’s iconic landmarks because the structures are tall and almost guarantee death, they do it for infamy according to psychologist Dr. Jeffrey Gardere. He tells CBS News: “This is the way you are guaranteed some sort of notoriety. You know if you jump from that landmark, whether the George Washington Bridge or the Empire State Building, that people will know about it and you are making a statement.”

NJ Woman Upset that Her Car Saved Suicide Jumper’s Life

Poor Maria McCormack. It was her Dodge Charger that was crushed by an inconsiderate suicidal man who had the nerve to land on her car after leaping from a building. Miraculously, Tom Magill survived the 39 story drop, the vehicle however, was totaled. Still reeling from her loss, McCormack hopes to meet the 22-year-old, but not to console him, she has questions: “Why my car out of all the cars in the city?” |NYP|

Street Artist Cements Disdain for BP


Meet BP’s littlest humanoid victims. The miniature cement men mourning over a concrete “oil spill” are Isaac Cordal’s latest. See also: homeless businessmen, climate change swimming holes and sidewalk suicides – all glued permanently into urban sites and ruins. Read more »

San Francisco donesn’t want people killing themselves using the Golden Gate Bridge and may spend millions to suicide-proof the notorious jump spot using special nets or what will likely become the world’s largest public hammock.

Suicide Panic! Insanity! Depravity! Art?

Just kidding. It’s just art. The NYPD has previously warned NYC residents that Antony Gormley’s cast iron life-size sculptures (scattered around public places and rooftops) aren’t potential suicides. But the cops were called to the Empire State Building yesterday anyway. Read more »

The NYPD Concerned About Antony Gormley-related Citizen Freak-outs

Sharing my concerns, the New York Police Department is making it a point to remind the public, in advance, that those figures atop buildings around Madison Square Park and the Flatiron District will be all fiberglass and iron, and not jumpers. Read more »