Radioactive Monster
I've been thinking about blimps.
I saw the fuji film blimp more than a handful of times while I was down in Austin and I got to thinking why I find blimps so disturbing and alien - and I realized it is because they seem cognitively dissonant - They are like quiet and majestic Japanese monsters - gentle - but not tame, floating calmly, but yet fraught with peril for their very presence seems to suggest the existence of much more terrible monsters - beasts that might seek to destroy them - forcing Godzilla or Gamera to come save the day - while us little humans watch in fear and awe. . . Yes, blimps like round floating painted beetles - moving casually across our sky - the war makes me wish for Japanese monsters - terror born of something awe-inspiring and uncontrollable - not the petty squabbles of men. . .
You know what I mean? Does anything otherwise common and explicable seem to bring out a weird feeling in you, as if it were challenging the rules of reality - while still firmly adhering to them? Does it not sometimes seem that if the things that are going on in Iraq (and that have gone one throughout time in one form or another - death, horror, brutality, greed, ignorance) are possible then giant radioactive lizards should be possible? Gargantuan flying turtles that shoot fire out as they spin around? Three-headed dragon beasts with no neck muscles? Or giant silk worms who speak to tiny Japanese fairies that live in a cushioned box and sing. . .
One last one - I am obsessed today. . .
I saw the fuji film blimp more than a handful of times while I was down in Austin and I got to thinking why I find blimps so disturbing and alien - and I realized it is because they seem cognitively dissonant - They are like quiet and majestic Japanese monsters - gentle - but not tame, floating calmly, but yet fraught with peril for their very presence seems to suggest the existence of much more terrible monsters - beasts that might seek to destroy them - forcing Godzilla or Gamera to come save the day - while us little humans watch in fear and awe. . . Yes, blimps like round floating painted beetles - moving casually across our sky - the war makes me wish for Japanese monsters - terror born of something awe-inspiring and uncontrollable - not the petty squabbles of men. . .
You know what I mean? Does anything otherwise common and explicable seem to bring out a weird feeling in you, as if it were challenging the rules of reality - while still firmly adhering to them? Does it not sometimes seem that if the things that are going on in Iraq (and that have gone one throughout time in one form or another - death, horror, brutality, greed, ignorance) are possible then giant radioactive lizards should be possible? Gargantuan flying turtles that shoot fire out as they spin around? Three-headed dragon beasts with no neck muscles? Or giant silk worms who speak to tiny Japanese fairies that live in a cushioned box and sing. . .
One last one - I am obsessed today. . .