(no subject)
i went to pinewoods for two weeks and maine for a weekend. both were excellent and i shall post about them on my blog o' music and dance, you know, when i get around to it. thanks to those who provided me lodging, transportation, music, &c. on these adventures.
the other day there was more excitement with the people across the street; this time apparently somebody got stabbed, though i guess not very severely as he skedaddled pretty quick. (i think this guy had just beaten up his girlfriend and possibly their baby and then raised his hand to the girlfriend's mother, who owns the house, which sort of explains why somebody felt like stabbing him, but possibly that was a different guy? all rather unclear.) four cop cars in the street, much yelling.
this is of course--like the previous incident--distressing in all sorts of ways, if perhaps par for the course in philly. what interests me is that i was so deeply taken aback at the presence of real-life violence. i've ingested plenty of our culture's cinematic gorefest (i mean, i don't play first-person shooters, but i did see 300), and yet the concept of someone actually stabbing someone else doesn't quite compute. even the yelling and general grills being got all up into, which was all i personally saw, struck me as more strange than anything else.
i am a dreadfully passive person, which i'm sure comes as a surprise to all of you, and i don't think i've had a really aggressive fight since middle school, maybe earlier. (if anyone has counter-examples i would love to hear them, but be so good as to share them privately.) and perhaps i have been watching too much star trek. but that much public, uncontrolled emotion--especially negative emotion--just seems so bizarre. how can you get that angry and not hide it, or channel it?
maybe i should have been a midwesterner....
the other day there was more excitement with the people across the street; this time apparently somebody got stabbed, though i guess not very severely as he skedaddled pretty quick. (i think this guy had just beaten up his girlfriend and possibly their baby and then raised his hand to the girlfriend's mother, who owns the house, which sort of explains why somebody felt like stabbing him, but possibly that was a different guy? all rather unclear.) four cop cars in the street, much yelling.
this is of course--like the previous incident--distressing in all sorts of ways, if perhaps par for the course in philly. what interests me is that i was so deeply taken aback at the presence of real-life violence. i've ingested plenty of our culture's cinematic gorefest (i mean, i don't play first-person shooters, but i did see 300), and yet the concept of someone actually stabbing someone else doesn't quite compute. even the yelling and general grills being got all up into, which was all i personally saw, struck me as more strange than anything else.
i am a dreadfully passive person, which i'm sure comes as a surprise to all of you, and i don't think i've had a really aggressive fight since middle school, maybe earlier. (if anyone has counter-examples i would love to hear them, but be so good as to share them privately.) and perhaps i have been watching too much star trek. but that much public, uncontrolled emotion--especially negative emotion--just seems so bizarre. how can you get that angry and not hide it, or channel it?
maybe i should have been a midwesterner....