I’m still bummed-out over the passing of Anthony Bourdain. There are some Tony-was-murdered-conspiracy-theories floating around, and even though I love conspiracy theories, I haven’t been able to even look into those because I’m still wrapping my head around his suicide. CNN has been airing the last episodes of Parts Unknown Bourdain completed before his death, and last night’s visit to Indonesia was a great episode for October even if it was pretty spooky to listen to Bourdain joking about being dead.

See, Indonesian culture is very mystical and nearly everyone regardless of religious background believes in the existence of an afterlife. Because of this the culture has a much more open and accepting relationship to death and the dead than we do in the West. In fact, we’d probably find it kind of scary.

Getting into some upcoming scary posts for October, here’s a great video about the a tradition among the Toraja — an ethnic minority living in southern Indonesia:

These people in Indonesia dig up their dead every year or so and redress them, bathe them and groom them and then on top of that they walk the dead through town back to the caskets to be reburied. Some say the bodies actually walk and stand due to black magic being preformed.

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Celebrity chef and author Anthony Bourdain recently premiered his new show on CNN. The title of Parts Unknown references both the remote locations the show seems to focus on as well as the odd bits of fruits, veggies and animals that make their way into the more exotic dishes Bourdain puts on display. The title also has a hint of ominousness to it and it’s these dark overtones that tell you Bourdain is really on to something, here.

Fans of No Reservations will find plenty to like here, but fans of particular episodes of Bourdain’s former, famous Travel Channel show will be especially pleased. For me, No Reservations was at its best when the places were gritty and the stories Bourdain uncovered were dark and deeply human – episodes from Columbia, Laos and Lebanon all leap to mind.

The first handful of episodes from Parts Unknown are packed with Bourdain at his edgy best: He recalls the destructiveness of the L.A. Riots in an episode focused on the city’s Koreatown neighborhood; he illuminates the violence and oppression in present-day Myanmar; he returns to Columbia.

In my favorite episode yet, Bourdain visits Morocco, comparing the present-day country and the city of Tangier to their counter-cultural legends, illuminating the lives and works of artists like Paul Bowles, William Burroughs, Brian Jones and the Master Musicians of Jujuka along the way. Oh, yeah! Bourdain even schools you on how to make homemade majoun. If you don’t know what majoun is, you really need to watch this video.

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