Category Archives: violence

On sneezing

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I can’t stop sneezing today, probably too much old book dust and dead mites. Sneezing a funny activity, but it’s not funny “ha-ha”, it’s funny strange. No two people sneeze the same way, but the result, whether you keep your eyes open or not, is the same wet mess. Yes, one can try to keep clean with an assortment of handkerchiefs or tissues, but you still face the problem of what to do with the tissue after you sneeze, and do you put a wet hanky back into your pocket? Maybe not. Don’t even think of maintaining your dignity when you sneeze because stuff will go everywhere. You are a veritable rhino-virus information center, contagious and moist. Babies cry when people sneeze. Sneezing during the sermon is not the particular sound effect that the pastor is looking for on any given Sunday morning. If you sneeze unexpectedly, the results might be disastrous with spit and snot going everywhere. Never sneeze while drinking coffee or eating a cheeseburger. I find that it is very easy to spill your drink when you sneeze no matter how hard you try to keep it from tipping. When you stifle a sneeze in an inappropriate situation, people will turn and look disapprovingly, knowing full-well they couldn’t have done it better. Why is it, though, that there is never a tissue at hand when you do sneeze? I met a woman who always sneezed in groups of three. When you have a cold, sneezing is painful and makes you feel wretched. Have you ever sneezed on your computer? I once sneezed a mouthful of soda up into my sinuses, felt funny for days. Have you ever banged your head on something when you sneezed? Of course we all try cold medicines, which only make you feel wooly-headed and worse or antihistamines which dry you out and make you feel funny. Whether it be a head cold or an allergy, sneezing is a symptom most of us could do without, unless you are stranded on a desert island, in which case you can just blow your nose with your hand and no one will care.

On sneezing

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I can’t stop sneezing today, probably too much old book dust and dead mites. Sneezing a funny activity, but it’s not funny “ha-ha”, it’s funny strange. No two people sneeze the same way, but the result, whether you keep your eyes open or not, is the same wet mess. Yes, one can try to keep clean with an assortment of handkerchiefs or tissues, but you still face the problem of what to do with the tissue after you sneeze, and do you put a wet hanky back into your pocket? Maybe not. Don’t even think of maintaining your dignity when you sneeze because stuff will go everywhere. You are a veritable rhino-virus information center, contagious and moist. Babies cry when people sneeze. Sneezing during the sermon is not the particular sound effect that the pastor is looking for on any given Sunday morning. If you sneeze unexpectedly, the results might be disastrous with spit and snot going everywhere. Never sneeze while drinking coffee or eating a cheeseburger. I find that it is very easy to spill your drink when you sneeze no matter how hard you try to keep it from tipping. When you stifle a sneeze in an inappropriate situation, people will turn and look disapprovingly, knowing full-well they couldn’t have done it better. Why is it, though, that there is never a tissue at hand when you do sneeze? I met a woman who always sneezed in groups of three. When you have a cold, sneezing is painful and makes you feel wretched. Have you ever sneezed on your computer? I once sneezed a mouthful of soda up into my sinuses, felt funny for days. Have you ever banged your head on something when you sneezed? Of course we all try cold medicines, which only make you feel wooly-headed and worse or antihistamines which dry you out and make you feel funny. Whether it be a head cold or an allergy, sneezing is a symptom most of us could do without, unless you are stranded on a desert island, in which case you can just blow your nose with your hand and no one will care.

On a bandage

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I had to put a bandage on my finger tonight because I accidentally hurt myself while preparing food. I don’t know about you, but I have sliced and diced my left hand until it has bled. Though I would not say I am particularly clumsy, I am not particularly deft and my hands bear the scars of years. My new bandage covers a small wound that only gave up a few drops of blood, so I don’t need stitches, but I wasn’t happy that I hurt myself either. It will heal, no doubt. I’ve put the requisite anti-bacterial products on my wound, a little peroxide. I put pressure on the wound to staunch the flow of blood, albeit a trickle. The bandage is holding in the rest. The bandage is flesh-colored except that my flesh is not that particular color of pink, but it does keep new germs from getting into the wound and infecting me with who knows what deadly horrors from the bacterial world. It turns out that if I cut myself, I bleed, that even on the macro-level, my blood is dark red, and I am not immortal. That is what the flimsy plastic bandage on my left finger tells me.

On a bandage

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I had to put a bandage on my finger tonight because I accidentally hurt myself while preparing food. I don’t know about you, but I have sliced and diced my left hand until it has bled. Though I would not say I am particularly clumsy, I am not particularly deft and my hands bear the scars of years. My new bandage covers a small wound that only gave up a few drops of blood, so I don’t need stitches, but I wasn’t happy that I hurt myself either. It will heal, no doubt. I’ve put the requisite anti-bacterial products on my wound, a little peroxide. I put pressure on the wound to staunch the flow of blood, albeit a trickle. The bandage is holding in the rest. The bandage is flesh-colored except that my flesh is not that particular color of pink, but it does keep new germs from getting into the wound and infecting me with who knows what deadly horrors from the bacterial world. It turns out that if I cut myself, I bleed, that even on the macro-level, my blood is dark red, and I am not immortal. That is what the flimsy plastic bandage on my left finger tells me.

On loud commercials

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This is not about weird local commercials for flooring or odd used cars or sewage pumping. This is about how television stations raise the sound level of commercials, a move that should be illegal, but still plagues us all. Imagine, you are watching a favorite television show at a normal level of sound. A commercial for pick-up trucks cut in at the same decible level as an old 747, knocking you off of the sofa, leaving you both startled and deaf. I know that “they”, the advertisers have been doing this for decades, but I still hate it. I end up diving for the remote control, spilling my potato chips and soda, in order to hit the mute button. I get it–they want me to pay attention, but really, the exact opposite happens: I take note of the offending product and vow to never, ever to buy it, no matter what it is. Once I get the screen muted, many commercials are actually rather entertaining, especially when you can’t really tell what is being advertised. Since the sound if off, you can’t hear either the music, the sound track or the voice-over, so many times it’s not easy to tell what is being sold at any given moment, especially if they need to use euphemisms to describe the product. I particularly hate the ads for all sanitary products, diapers, catheters and the like. Food ads late at night are despicable. All truck ads are blatantly loud and obnoxious. Some insurance ads, especially if the character is dressed in white, are creepy and sketchy, which is not exactly the image an insurance company wants to put forward. Honestly, if they didn’t turn up the sound during the ads, I might actually listen and watch. In the meantime, I will turn off the sound, defeating the entire purpose of the commercials, and make up my soundtrack and voice-over, all the while maintaining my list of annoying products that I will never use.

On loud commercials

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This is not about weird local commercials for flooring or odd used cars or sewage pumping. This is about how television stations raise the sound level of commercials, a move that should be illegal, but still plagues us all. Imagine, you are watching a favorite television show at a normal level of sound. A commercial for pick-up trucks cut in at the same decible level as an old 747, knocking you off of the sofa, leaving you both startled and deaf. I know that “they”, the advertisers have been doing this for decades, but I still hate it. I end up diving for the remote control, spilling my potato chips and soda, in order to hit the mute button. I get it–they want me to pay attention, but really, the exact opposite happens: I take note of the offending product and vow to never, ever to buy it, no matter what it is. Once I get the screen muted, many commercials are actually rather entertaining, especially when you can’t really tell what is being advertised. Since the sound if off, you can’t hear either the music, the sound track or the voice-over, so many times it’s not easy to tell what is being sold at any given moment, especially if they need to use euphemisms to describe the product. I particularly hate the ads for all sanitary products, diapers, catheters and the like. Food ads late at night are despicable. All truck ads are blatantly loud and obnoxious. Some insurance ads, especially if the character is dressed in white, are creepy and sketchy, which is not exactly the image an insurance company wants to put forward. Honestly, if they didn’t turn up the sound during the ads, I might actually listen and watch. In the meantime, I will turn off the sound, defeating the entire purpose of the commercials, and make up my soundtrack and voice-over, all the while maintaining my list of annoying products that I will never use.

On Sherlock Holmes

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There are few characters in the fictional world of literary creations that are as pure as Sherlock Holmes. He is driven to solve the crime, not because he necessarily wants to see justice administered, but because the puzzle must be solved at almost any cost. I wouldn’t suggest that Holmes is obsessive or compulsive, but in a way, he certainly is. He doesn’t care about moral philosophy or the structure of the universe unless either of those topics would help him solve a crime. His ideas about crime and punishment are black and white, so his objective of putting the criminal away is clear and obvious. At the same time, he hasn’t the least bit for popular news, discussions of the weather, or sports, beyond his own training in boxing and stick fighting. Like most people, he loves to eat, listen to music, talk when the talk interests him, but the one thing he cannot escape in this life is solitude–no man is an island and Sherlock Holmes is no different. His ability to discern the important from the mundane and casual stems in large part from his willingness to narrate the facts of a case, but he needs an audience, and most of the time his sounding board is Watson. Watson is the sieve through which his reasoning passes. If he can tell Watson the story, he can figure it out. Holmes functions because of the power of narrative. He can work through the logic of the clues by building a narrative that makes sense, discarding incidental clues that may be red-herrings, and see through the smoke screen left by the criminals. In the end, the stories are all very similar about shame and hate, vengeance and envy, greed and stupidity, or love and jealousy, and Sherlock must sort out the facts without getting personally involved in any of it. Emotion is all too often the downfall of many a criminal, and Holmes works constantly to see through the intentions, let the clues speak to him, and resolve the problem at hand. Yet, I would also suggest that Holmes cannot do all of this work, wade through so much human flotsam and jetsam, and still be the least bit normal as a person. He’s interested in bee-keeping; this is his only outside interest that doesn’t appear to have anything to do with crime solving. Bees can’t really talk back, they have a collective conscience, they have no crime, their objectives are orderly and pure, free from envy, sloth, and ire. He admires them. If Watson were not there to act as chronicler and psychologist/therapist, Holmes would go crazy listening to the irrational world which surrounds him explode. Watson is the perfect foil for Holmes because he is a walking case to be constantly narrated and resolved, but Watson is also the perfect uninformed audience who needs the explanations to make the world return to proper working order again. After all, isn’t that what the detective does? Return things back to their proper place, pass out punishment, get the world to spin on its axis again, make sure the bad guys are put away, give a solution to the problem. Holmes wouldn’t be Holmes, really, without Watson, and Watson would just be retired, boring, military surgeon with a bad shoulder without Holmes. A more interesting symbiosis in the literary world would be hard to find.

On Sherlock Holmes

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There are few characters in the fictional world of literary creations that are as pure as Sherlock Holmes. He is driven to solve the crime, not because he necessarily wants to see justice administered, but because the puzzle must be solved at almost any cost. I wouldn’t suggest that Holmes is obsessive or compulsive, but in a way, he certainly is. He doesn’t care about moral philosophy or the structure of the universe unless either of those topics would help him solve a crime. His ideas about crime and punishment are black and white, so his objective of putting the criminal away is clear and obvious. At the same time, he hasn’t the least bit for popular news, discussions of the weather, or sports, beyond his own training in boxing and stick fighting. Like most people, he loves to eat, listen to music, talk when the talk interests him, but the one thing he cannot escape in this life is solitude–no man is an island and Sherlock Holmes is no different. His ability to discern the important from the mundane and casual stems in large part from his willingness to narrate the facts of a case, but he needs an audience, and most of the time his sounding board is Watson. Watson is the sieve through which his reasoning passes. If he can tell Watson the story, he can figure it out. Holmes functions because of the power of narrative. He can work through the logic of the clues by building a narrative that makes sense, discarding incidental clues that may be red-herrings, and see through the smoke screen left by the criminals. In the end, the stories are all very similar about shame and hate, vengeance and envy, greed and stupidity, or love and jealousy, and Sherlock must sort out the facts without getting personally involved in any of it. Emotion is all too often the downfall of many a criminal, and Holmes works constantly to see through the intentions, let the clues speak to him, and resolve the problem at hand. Yet, I would also suggest that Holmes cannot do all of this work, wade through so much human flotsam and jetsam, and still be the least bit normal as a person. He’s interested in bee-keeping; this is his only outside interest that doesn’t appear to have anything to do with crime solving. Bees can’t really talk back, they have a collective conscience, they have no crime, their objectives are orderly and pure, free from envy, sloth, and ire. He admires them. If Watson were not there to act as chronicler and psychologist/therapist, Holmes would go crazy listening to the irrational world which surrounds him explode. Watson is the perfect foil for Holmes because he is a walking case to be constantly narrated and resolved, but Watson is also the perfect uninformed audience who needs the explanations to make the world return to proper working order again. After all, isn’t that what the detective does? Return things back to their proper place, pass out punishment, get the world to spin on its axis again, make sure the bad guys are put away, give a solution to the problem. Holmes wouldn’t be Holmes, really, without Watson, and Watson would just be retired, boring, military surgeon with a bad shoulder without Holmes. A more interesting symbiosis in the literary world would be hard to find.

On ice hockey

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If I had anything rational to say about this sport, I would say it, but I’m not going to do that. Ice hockey is a visceral experience that is enjoyed in some other part of the brain that has nothing to do with reason, logic, or higher patterns of thought. Use a stick to put the puck in a net, and knock down anyone who tries to stop you. Oh, and to make it interesting, we’re going to do this while skating a highly polished piece of ice and add eleven more guys (or girls) to the fray, just to make it interesting. I loved to play this game as a child with flashing blades of steel strapped to my feet, flying across the ice with murder in my heart and a rock hard puck at my feet. What’s even better, we arm all of the players with a nice long stick so they can move the puck, but they also have something with which they might hit the other players. This arrangement sounds perfect to me–perfect for mayhem, that is. Fist fights are common when someone breaks the rules, hits too hard, or plays a little dirty, all of which is expected at some point in almost every game. I never played in organized games or high school–I was the wrong shape and size: I was tall and skinny, which means my center of gravity was relatively high, which is bad for skating where you want your center of gravity as low as possible. I broke two watches playing pick up games in the park, and then I stopped wearing my watch when I played hockey. I played with my skinny friends while in college, and we had a good time knocking each other down. It is common for hockey players to have lost teeth, to have broken several bones, to have bad knees (ankles, shoulders, necks, etc.,), and to have an early onset of arthritis in most of their joints. The hitting and checking is fun, but it does wear on both your body and your soul because at some point most players do ask themselves, what am I doing? I’ve gotten bloody noses, bruised everything, almost a concussion (or maybe a real one, who knows), a twisted knee, and a plethora of other injuries from this sport. Yes, it’s fast, yes, it’s exciting, and I won’t deny it is fun to watch because except for few time outs to clean up the ice, the action is non-stop. Hockey is a bit of organized violence where you can let yourself get into it without feeling like a complete Neanderthal. This game speaks to aggression and violence in an open acknowledgement of our most base urges and desires. In fact, I would suggest that some people would be totally repulsed by this spectacle, but that they might not be able to stop watching either. Hockey is not for the weak of heart or those with a refined sense of peace or passiveness. Hockey is a brawl that lasts for an hour while twelve men fight over a little black, rubber disk, which is absurd, but for many people it is a cathartic release of their most primitive, dark emotions which have no other place to go. Some people will earnestly deny that they might have violent tendencies, but my experience within the human race, being one, for example, is that there is a hockey player inside of us all. Whether we ever choose to let him/her skate out on the ice of society is another matter entirely. Some might choose to mow the lawn, wash their car, go for a run, play basketball, walk the dog, looking for ways to appease their inner hockey player, but I’m wondering if that is enough. We are all just a bit aggressive (drive during rush hour and see what I mean), so we all need to address that part of our character even though that part of our nature is irrational, dark, base, and frightening. Are we brave enough to examine that dark side of our personalities that will sometimes escape, turning us into aggressive, mean, reactionary, and violent people? So I go to a hockey game and let others hit and pound on each other, and, strangely, I find this rather satisfying—flashing blades, slashing sticks, violent checking, slap shots, spinning pucks—a juxtaposition of chaos and order.

On ice hockey

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If I had anything rational to say about this sport, I would say it, but I’m not going to do that. Ice hockey is a visceral experience that is enjoyed in some other part of the brain that has nothing to do with reason, logic, or higher patterns of thought. Use a stick to put the puck in a net, and knock down anyone who tries to stop you. Oh, and to make it interesting, we’re going to do this while skating a highly polished piece of ice and add eleven more guys (or girls) to the fray, just to make it interesting. I loved to play this game as a child with flashing blades of steel strapped to my feet, flying across the ice with murder in my heart and a rock hard puck at my feet. What’s even better, we arm all of the players with a nice long stick so they can move the puck, but they also have something with which they might hit the other players. This arrangement sounds perfect to me–perfect for mayhem, that is. Fist fights are common when someone breaks the rules, hits too hard, or plays a little dirty, all of which is expected at some point in almost every game. I never played in organized games or high school–I was the wrong shape and size: I was tall and skinny, which means my center of gravity was relatively high, which is bad for skating where you want your center of gravity as low as possible. I broke two watches playing pick up games in the park, and then I stopped wearing my watch when I played hockey. I played with my skinny friends while in college, and we had a good time knocking each other down. It is common for hockey players to have lost teeth, to have broken several bones, to have bad knees (ankles, shoulders, necks, etc.,), and to have an early onset of arthritis in most of their joints. The hitting and checking is fun, but it does wear on both your body and your soul because at some point most players do ask themselves, what am I doing? I’ve gotten bloody noses, bruised everything, almost a concussion (or maybe a real one, who knows), a twisted knee, and a plethora of other injuries from this sport. Yes, it’s fast, yes, it’s exciting, and I won’t deny it is fun to watch because except for few time outs to clean up the ice, the action is non-stop. Hockey is a bit of organized violence where you can let yourself get into it without feeling like a complete Neanderthal. This game speaks to aggression and violence in an open acknowledgement of our most base urges and desires. In fact, I would suggest that some people would be totally repulsed by this spectacle, but that they might not be able to stop watching either. Hockey is not for the weak of heart or those with a refined sense of peace or passiveness. Hockey is a brawl that lasts for an hour while twelve men fight over a little black, rubber disk, which is absurd, but for many people it is a cathartic release of their most primitive, dark emotions which have no other place to go. Some people will earnestly deny that they might have violent tendencies, but my experience within the human race, being one, for example, is that there is a hockey player inside of us all. Whether we ever choose to let him/her skate out on the ice of society is another matter entirely. Some might choose to mow the lawn, wash their car, go for a run, play basketball, walk the dog, looking for ways to appease their inner hockey player, but I’m wondering if that is enough. We are all just a bit aggressive (drive during rush hour and see what I mean), so we all need to address that part of our character even though that part of our nature is irrational, dark, base, and frightening. Are we brave enough to examine that dark side of our personalities that will sometimes escape, turning us into aggressive, mean, reactionary, and violent people? So I go to a hockey game and let others hit and pound on each other, and, strangely, I find this rather satisfying—flashing blades, slashing sticks, violent checking, slap shots, spinning pucks—a juxtaposition of chaos and order.