xtcian

7/5/02 One thing you can

7/5/02

One thing you can say about humans, they have a well-crafted sense of the absurd. As full of defense mechanisms as we are, we still love to celebrate holidays by aping the very things we hate the most. In England, Guy Fawkes tried to blow up Parliament, and the Brits respond every year by trying to blow up everything else. Americans live in fear of war on their own turf, but we celebrate our Independence with mock cannon fire and torpedoes racing across the sky in fireworks. I wonder how soldiers returning shell-shocked from WWI or even Vietnam – felt about the sound of fireworks; it must have freaked them out.

I adore fireworks, but the fourth of July has traditionally meant bad things for me last year I got a kidney stone and spent 15 hours in retching pain; in 1987 I broke up with Jane, sending me into a depressive tailspin; a few years later, Tracy and I effectively ended our relationship when we weren't prophylactically careful. The other 4ths seemed mostly hot and full of bad food at other people's houses. But this time I thought a lot about our country, and mostly felt guilty. I'd go into why, but it's nothing you can't hear from other bleeding-heart knee-jerk leftists still willing to write about such things. Suffice to say I wish we had a government with an ounce of compassion; a president that wasn't a right-to-life monkey; a populace that didn't hate fags; and decent cheese.

In a quirk indicative of the region, the fireworks were held today on the 5th of July, and half the Berkshires drove to Lime Rock, CT for the show. It was pretty awesome, and the sound of the loud white fireworks (you know, the ones that are there just for the bass response) echoed through the Taconic hillsides like Mahler's One Billionth Symphony. Tessa, Shelagh Ratner, Lindsay and I traded quips, and for about 6.5 seconds, I was a happy American.

But I don't allow myself such luxuries. Like a true whining wet blanket of pinko sentimentality, I wondered to myself, what is more America to you? These twinkling red lights:

Or these?