Amol Sarva

AMOL'S FUNERAL PARTY

How To Throw A Funeral

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here again. This is not the instruction manual. That already exists, because of course there was paperwork. This is the recap: a little box of evidence for everyone who made it through the tight door, dressed in funeral black, brought the trouble and delight, and helped make a living person briefly impossible to bury.

Remember the day See the photos

Dearly Beloved

Amol's Funeral Party was a living funeral for close friends. A reminder, an RSVP test, a tight door, and then a room full of people saying the kind of things they might otherwise save for the worst possible timing.

The instruction was funeral black: stylish, dramatic, church-compatible. Bring or invent an afterlife gift: advice, an offering, a drawing, a prophecy, an accusation, a blessing, a correction, or a lie. There would be memorial objects to sign. There would be eulogy intentions. There would be, inevitably, a little administrative chaos.

"Tonight's not a eulogy, not really. And nor is it merely a celebration. It is something stranger and more human than either of those things alone."

This page is the return gift. For the confirmed mourners, the late arrivals, the speakers, the singers, the people who cried, the people who made jokes because they had to, and the people who now have photographic evidence that this did in fact happen.

The Day

You arrived at the appointed hour, or near enough for the afterlife. The service gathered itself slowly: friends finding seats, black clothes doing their work, old jokes coming back to life, people deciding whether this was hilarious, sacred, inappropriate, or all of the above.

Then the room changed. The idea stopped being a bit and became a ceremony. The living funeral became very simple: here is the person, here are the witnesses, here are the words that usually come too late.

Afterward came resurrection, drinks, food, dancing, and the ordinary relief of seeing everybody upright again. The point was not to pretend death is funny. The point was to steal a little language back from it.

The Service

Opening

John Merz gave the room its shape: chronos and kairos, Rilke and the deep present, the strange mercy of saying now what usually waits for later.

Offerings

Matte Chi, Pascale Sarva, Alfred Steiner, Tom Sanford, John Post Lee, Jessa Howe, and Jay Freeman came forward with love, mockery, legal filings, investment risk, old friendship, resurrection clauses, and other forms of tribute.

Music And Benediction

Cecily Sanford sang. The room listened. The formal record closed with bells, cracks where the light gets in, and the instruction to continue into the richness and geology of the dance.

What Was Said

The readable transcript is the primary record. These are the field notes for anyone who wants to remember the voices without reopening the entire file at once.

  • John Merz made the evening feel less like a prank and more like a rite.
  • Matte Chi gave the flowers directly: love, pride, friendship, no clever escape hatch.
  • Pascale Sarva brought sunscreen, parents, travel, knees, old love letters, and other instructions for surviving being alive.
  • Alfred Steiner produced a venture-backed eulogy with limited partners, unicorn bait, philosophy, and a high tolerance for risk.
  • Tom Sanford spoke from the long record: Columbia, art, impossible projects, and the best-friend testimony Amol clearly desired and absolutely got.
  • Jessa Howe delivered the last will and testament of a client who was, for all legally relevant purposes, alive and judging the delivery.
  • Jay Freeman handled symbolic lateness, meaningful aliveness, and the certainty that Amol would soon return with a plan, three podcasts, and a redesigned website.

Credits

A funeral party is not a solo act, even when the deceased insists on reviewing the guest list. These are the people, places, songs, documents, favors, and strange little pieces of infrastructure that made the day possible.

Get Stuff

Group chat

The temporary home of trouble and delight. Useful for last wishes, photo sharing, corrections, and the kind of logistics that should not require texting Amol individually.

The songs by Cecily Sanford

Cecily carried the room through the musical parts of the service, which is a harder assignment than it sounds because the room was already balancing sincerity, comedy, and resurrection.

  • "The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get (Rare)" by The Drownout, after Morrissey and company.
  • "Hallelujah" by Madeleine Peyroux, written by Leonard Cohen.
  • Karaoke-friendly tracks: link coming soon.

Ticket payment link

For non-accepted, non-waitlisted service providers attending to sell to Amol or his guests, including private wealth, real estate, and private banking. The afterlife has a cover charge.

Guests, RSVPs, sponsors, invoices

Guests and RSVPs can view the list of sponsors on the main event site. Sponsors can also view the status of their marketing-fee invoice there.

Cast, Crew, And Special Guests

Father John Merz / Church

For the room, the rite, and the opening permission to treat the evening as something stranger and more human than a normal party. Contact: [email protected].

Johnny Matthews III

Shadow play and dance: the part of the service that did not need to explain itself in prose.

Matte Chi

Seventh grade friend and filmmaker; speaker of the first great direct address of the day. Instagram link coming soon.

Pascale Sarva

Columbia first year, reader of "Wear Sunscreen," and proof that advice can become a family artifact if delivered at exactly the wrong funeral.

Cecily Sanford

Songs. The room needed music, and Cecily gave it a voice.

Alfred Steiner

Artist, attorney, and limited-partner eulogist. Thank you for making venture capital briefly useful to mourning.

Tom Sanford

Artist, old friend, and keeper of the long record: Columbia, art, rooftops, goldfish bowls, and the best-friend testimony.

Jay Freeman

Eulogist, Stuy alum, and donor to Stuyvesant, where poor kids can go to the best school in the world.

John Post Lee

Art dealer, political ally, and necessary contributor to the reversal-and-resurrection department.

Jessa Howe

Immigration rights lawyer and counsel of record for a client who was, for all legally relevant purposes, alive.

DJ Kami of the Klubs

For the post-service body work: resurrection, dancing, and keeping the afterparty from becoming a panel discussion.

Jon Allen

Thank you for the dancer sourcing. Contact: ask Amol.

Eugene Krasnaok

Amol's favorite photographer for portraits and events in New York. Thank you for making the evidence look better than memory usually does.

Arlina

On-site coordinator. Contact: ask Amol.

ILIS / Cassidy / Pia

Afterparty 1: ILIS, with Cassidy on contact and Pia hosting. Contact: [email protected].

Morgan Sullivan with the Church

Part of the Ascension orbit that helped the day become possible. More via ascensionbrooklyn.org.

DOCUMENTS TO PERUSE FROM THE MAKING OF AND THE DAY OF

The paperwork, because every afterlife needs administration. The actual how-to lives in the guide PDF. The rest is record, transcript, or supporting mythology.

The Transcript Of All Speeches

The speeches, songs, and witness, cleaned up for the record. This is the document to read when you want the day back in sequence: the opening, the friends, the family, the songs, the jokes, the legal mischief, the resurrection clause, and the closing benediction.

Living funeral event planning guide

The actual how-to, for anyone reckless enough to try this at home. This is the practical making-of document: premise, room, invitations, speakers, timing, memorial objects, documentation, and the problem of turning ceremony back into party before the reverence gets sticky.

Great Perorations Modern Companion

A short companion anthology of modern mourning. It gives context, fragments, and close readings for later texts that still feel electrically alive, without trying to reproduce the whole copyrighted works.

Included there

  • W. H. Auden — Funeral Blues
  • W. H. Auden — In Memory of W. B. Yeats
  • Dylan Thomas — A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London
  • Jawaharlal Nehru — On the Death of Gandhi
  • Robert F. Kennedy — Remarks on the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
  • Earl Spencer — Eulogy for Diana, Princess of Wales
  • Ted Kennedy — Eulogy for Robert F. Kennedy

Amol's Compendium of Great Perorations Full Combined

The full perorations document: the larger reading edition behind the event's speechy, death-haunted, civic-minded atmosphere. Public-domain works are included as reading texts; later modern works appear through short fragments and editorial notes.

Included there

  • Editorial Note
  • Pericles' Funeral Oration
  • Mark Antony over Caesar
  • The Gettysburg Address
  • Menexenus
  • Phaedo
  • Death's Duel
  • Lycidas
  • Adonais
  • In Memoriam A.H.H.
  • When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd
  • To an Athlete Dying Young
  • In Memory of Major Robert Gregory
  • Later modern mourning texts: Auden, Thomas, Nehru, Robert F. Kennedy, Earl Spencer, and Ted Kennedy
  • Source Note

The Amol Sarva Dossier

Background material, exhibits, supporting mythology. Useful for anyone trying to understand how a person becomes the kind of person who would produce a funeral party while still available to review the guest list.