Death or Disco? Preserve Your Loved Ones as Their Favorite Vinyl Record

(ZURICH) — Tupac Shakur ended up as a joint. The long-circulated rumor was recently confirmed by two members of his former band Outlawz, EDI Mean and Young Noble. In 1996, the two musicians actually mixed the ashes of the assassinated hip-hop star with marijuana and smoked it just like Tupac had asked in his song Black Jesus: "Last Wishes, niggas, smoke my ashes."

Of course, Tupac's last wish is hardly common. Still, it isn't as unusual as one may think. The number of people choosing an alternative to the peaceful coffin or urn of ashes is increasing every year. If fate has already gambled away half of your battle, the reasoning goes, you should at least be able to organize your departure entirely on your own terms.

In Switzerland, natural burials are very popular, due in part to the "ash freedom" laws: anyone who chooses to be cremated may also decide where the ashes are cast. Scattered under a favorite tree? Along a favorite trail? In the river, on whose banks you stole your first kiss? Basically everything is permitted. (See the top 10 unsolved hip-hop murders.)

Such "gone with the wind" burials are undoubtedly very poetic and moving moments of farewell. And yet there's a catch: once the ashes are gone, all is gone. The memory of an individual is reduced to a thought, without a fixed place of remembrance or a tangible symbol in which the remains can be preserved.

Nature lovers can work around this problem elegantly by asking that their ashes be turned into fertilizer for a newly planted young tree. As the tree grows, it absorbs the ground cover in its roots, its branches and foliage soon flourishing into a natural grave.

Diamonds and drinks
The pan-European company Algordanza (meaning "memory" in Romansh), founded in 2004, offers a relic particularly well-suited for widows: it converts the ashes of dead loved ones into faux diamonds. The synthetic stones are manufactured in a laboratory in Neuchatel; depending on how much boron has been deposited in the body, the diamonds have a weaker or stronger blue shimmer. The process from order to delivery usually takes two to four months, and the price depends on the carat weight of the gemstone — between 4,800 and 10,000 Swiss francs ($5,300 to $11,085). (See why happens to your social networks when you die.)

An eternal end as a tree or a piece of jewelry? Dandy's and rock 'n' rollers laugh at the idea. Their perpetuation should of course be staged according to the way they lived their lives: unconventional, loud, hedonistic. Actor James Doohan (Scotty in the TV series "Star Trek") and LSD guru Timothy Leary had particularly cool send-offs. They both had their ashes attached to a rocket and sent into space. The price tag? Around $10,000.

Another original — but far more sustainable — offer comes from the British company And Vinyly, who rewrote the well known RIP (Rest in Peace) to RIV — Rest in Vinyl. Specifically: the ashes of the deceased are processed into a working vinyl record. The simplest version costs $3,100, but that will get you 30 vinyl copies (enough for friends and relatives) onto which music or a recorded message can be pressed. One particularly spooky option: opt against a song or message and leave only the eerie crackling of ash to be heard on the blank disc. (See TIME's video, "YouTomb: Where the Rich and Famous Spend Eternity.")

Of course, it can all get much more extravagant. For $786, you can get a custom tune composed; and for a bit more cash, you can circulate your records in shops around the world. Or choose the ultimate option, which will run you $5,500: James Hague, a painter at the National Portrait Gallery, will use residual ash and acrylics to paint your face in gorgeous pastel colors onto the album covers.

Unlike Algordanza, whose diamond offer is strictly limited to human ashes, And Vinyly will also process your pet's ashes onto a record.

Those for who want to take Tupac's joint solution to the next level, should head on over to Thailand. There, a new drug concoction called "Tai Hong," in which cooked leaves of the Kratom tree are mixed with freshly cremated ashes, is quickly gaining popularity. Supposedly, not only does the drink have an exquisite flavor, but it also elicits a heightened state of consciousness — usually not for too long, but just enough time to share an unforgettable farewell.

See a greener alternative to cremation.

See if we're heading to an American without cemeteries.

Libya: Towns That Loved Gaddafi Face an Uncertain Future

Men carry bodies found in a mass grave to a cemetery overlooking the Libyan town of al-Qala on Sept. 30, 2011

Three children crowd around the parked car, thrusting their little heads through the open window on the driver's side. "Do you love Gaddafi?" they demand to know from a foreign reporter. When the question is turned around, they nod vigorously. "Yes," they all say. Then, with an almost intimidating seriousness: "What are you doing here?"

Unlike their neighbors in nearby communities, the residents of al-Asaaba are not happy with the way things in Libya are going. It used to be the favored town of the area; now its residents are the losers. The kids are an important indicator of this twist of fate. They are Ahmed Ramadan's grandchildren. They went up to the car when it pulled up onto Ramadan's driveway. Ramadan was Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's personal secretary. According to other security chiefs captured by former rebels who now control the country, he was also responsible for relaying the Libyan leader's most important security commands throughout the country during the bloody six-month uprising. (See photos over the fight for Gaddafi's hometown.)

When Ramadan was captured in late August, Tripoli rebel fighters say he tried to kill himself. He survived the self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head only to wind up a prisoner at the rebels' main military base in Tripoli instead. "The rats took him," one of his grandchildren now says from the car window. And around these parts, the children aren't the only ones still using the ousted Libyan leader's slurs for his enemies.

Ramadan's hometown of al-Asaaba is one of several towns on the fringe of western Libya's Nafusa Mountains that two months after the fall of Tripoli have found themselves on the wrong side of history, struggling to survive in a post-Gaddafi period of unmanaged retribution and vigilante comeuppance. "Most of the people who worked for Gaddafi's forces were from Mashashiya, Gawaleesh and al-Asaaba," says Colonel Suleiman Shenbar, a military commander from the transitional government in the regional capital of Gharyan, enumerating nearby towns that were loyal to the fallen regime. "Between 70% and 80% supported Gaddafi," he says of the people of those towns. But, he adds, they have been subdued. Still, submission there came grudgingly. On Sept. 10, loyalists killed eight Gharyani forces when they entered the town to seize weapons, and Shenbar says they're still working on seizing the rest.

In the center of al-Asaaba, the tricolor flag of Free Libya is now painted on some of the storefronts, but it's unclear who put it there. The fighters from Gharyan who man the checkpoints on the town's approach are suspicious of anyone arriving from within al-Asaaba — and perhaps for good reason. "We were the only mountain town that was with Gaddafi," says Hussein Masbah, one of Ramadan's neighbors. (See TIME's video on Libyan teenagers speculating about life after Gaddafi.)

Although most Libyans opposed Gaddafi, the former rebels say, there are still those who benefited from his 42-year rule. Those who hated him — from the political Islamists of Benghazi in Libya's east to the indigenous Amazigh fighters of the Nafusa Mountains in Libya's west — said they did so because of his cruel repression, his cronyism and his neglect of most communities. Those who loved him did so not because he represented a certain politics but because he favored them with jobs or development, the rebels say. The readjustment of fortunes may be hard to digest.

In al-Asaaba, residents speak of their nostalgia for Ramadan and his favors. "This house is not like what you'd imagine," says Hussein Masbah, unlocking the green gate to the former Gaddafi aide's compound. "It's a simple house. He took a bank loan to build this house," he says. Ramadan would spend summers there, doting on the locals, he adds. "We loved him like our father. He always gave money to help poor people." When Gharyani fighters raided the compound a few weeks ago, they caused severe damage, Masbah says, shooting up the walls and arresting several who were guarding the compound, including Masbah's brother, whom he hasn't heard from since.

Read why Gaddafi survived the rebellion.

Libya: Towns That Loved Gaddafi Face an Uncertain Future

Men carry bodies found in a mass grave to a cemetery overlooking the Libyan town of al-Qala on Sept. 30, 2011

Three children crowd around the parked car, thrusting their little heads through the open window on the driver's side. "Do you love Gaddafi?" they demand to know from a foreign reporter. When the question is turned around, they nod vigorously. "Yes," they all say. Then, with an almost intimidating seriousness: "What are you doing here?"

Unlike their neighbors in nearby communities, the residents of al-Asaaba are not happy with the way things in Libya are going. It used to be the favored town of the area; now its residents are the losers. The kids are an important indicator of this twist of fate. They are Ahmed Ramadan's grandchildren. They went up to the car when it pulled up onto Ramadan's driveway. Ramadan was Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's personal secretary. According to other security chiefs captured by former rebels who now control the country, he was also responsible for relaying the Libyan leader's most important security commands throughout the country during the bloody six-month uprising. (See photos over the fight for Gaddafi's hometown.)

When Ramadan was captured in late August, Tripoli rebel fighters say he tried to kill himself. He survived the self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head only to wind up a prisoner at the rebels' main military base in Tripoli instead. "The rats took him," one of his grandchildren now says from the car window. And around these parts, the children aren't the only ones still using the ousted Libyan leader's slurs for his enemies.

Ramadan's hometown of al-Asaaba is one of several towns on the fringe of western Libya's Nafusa Mountains that two months after the fall of Tripoli have found themselves on the wrong side of history, struggling to survive in a post-Gaddafi period of unmanaged retribution and vigilante comeuppance. "Most of the people who worked for Gaddafi's forces were from Mashashiya, Gawaleesh and al-Asaaba," says Colonel Suleiman Shenbar, a military commander from the transitional government in the regional capital of Gharyan, enumerating nearby towns that were loyal to the fallen regime. "Between 70% and 80% supported Gaddafi," he says of the people of those towns. But, he adds, they have been subdued. Still, submission there came grudgingly. On Sept. 10, loyalists killed eight Gharyani forces when they entered the town to seize weapons, and Shenbar says they're still working on seizing the rest.

In the center of al-Asaaba, the tricolor flag of Free Libya is now painted on some of the storefronts, but it's unclear who put it there. The fighters from Gharyan who man the checkpoints on the town's approach are suspicious of anyone arriving from within al-Asaaba — and perhaps for good reason. "We were the only mountain town that was with Gaddafi," says Hussein Masbah, one of Ramadan's neighbors. (See TIME's video on Libyan teenagers speculating about life after Gaddafi.)

Although most Libyans opposed Gaddafi, the former rebels say, there are still those who benefited from his 42-year rule. Those who hated him — from the political Islamists of Benghazi in Libya's east to the indigenous Amazigh fighters of the Nafusa Mountains in Libya's west — said they did so because of his cruel repression, his cronyism and his neglect of most communities. Those who loved him did so not because he represented a certain politics but because he favored them with jobs or development, the rebels say. The readjustment of fortunes may be hard to digest.

In al-Asaaba, residents speak of their nostalgia for Ramadan and his favors. "This house is not like what you'd imagine," says Hussein Masbah, unlocking the green gate to the former Gaddafi aide's compound. "It's a simple house. He took a bank loan to build this house," he says. Ramadan would spend summers there, doting on the locals, he adds. "We loved him like our father. He always gave money to help poor people." When Gharyani fighters raided the compound a few weeks ago, they caused severe damage, Masbah says, shooting up the walls and arresting several who were guarding the compound, including Masbah's brother, whom he hasn't heard from since.

Read why Gaddafi survived the rebellion.