Could be a good point. Or it could be that only someone comfortable enough about who and what he is can happily call himself “Weird” and not worry about it. Could also be that someone who feels the need to trumphet themselves as “Great” is despertly trying to hide an inferiority complex the size of Texas, one that makes him sit in a darkened room, eyes gleeming furiously in the reflected light of the TV showing scenes of mass murder and destruction over and over while masturbating until blood seeps between your claw-like fingers from your tortured cock muttering over and over “I’m still alive, someday someone will take notice of my wretched existance”. Go away, kid, you’re not worth the effort it takes to despise you.
Obviously, it is too early. I grasped the loss of life in the first hour or so. I went through the horrors of the people trapped in the building many, many times in the first day - I didn’t sleep much the first night. Well, flame on. I won’t continue this thread any more. No use hurting any more feelings. Sorry.
Are you threatening him in return? The threat is percieved by you. I see it as he simply does not want to know you, shake your hand, etc.
And look who’s offering amateur psychology now!
Here’s just a thought - what other reason might a mod have for checking out a possibly inflammatory OP? Hmmm…
I won’t spoon-feed you the answer, just ponder that for a moment.
Let’s look at the first lines of you OP again, with my italicized comments:
You’re being an insensitive ass. First by posting this, then by defending it in the faces of those who’ve been personally affected by these events. If you were truly sorry about their losses, maybe you would have thought about their feelings before posting about how spectacular the explosion was and how you want to see it again and again.
Simulpost. Disreagrd my previous post.
Thank you. I appreciate it.
I may never sleep a whole night again. And If I ever do, I think I’ll be saddened by that, too.
The only thing I find amazing about the collapses is that they came down pretty much on top of themselves. I don’t even want to think of the destruction if one or both of the towers had fallen over.
Vega
Tell me, Gazoo, do you jack off while watching this over and over on videotape?
Gazoo, hope you are ready for the smackdown this thread’s gonna get from the assembled multitude.
Folks, I was as horrified as anyone as I watched the attack play out. What’s more, after being bombarded by these images for days straight, I’ve just spent the weekend sitting by my father’s deathbed (he had emphysema and cancer) and was there Sunday morning when he drew his last breath. So I think I can safely say that I’ve witnessed enough death for one week, thank you very much.
But really, I was wondering when someone was going to bring up the weird, creepy beauty of the TV images of the WTC attack, and was thinking of posting about it myself. The geometric precision of the towers; the clear early-autumn sky; the way the planes seemed to disappear whole into the buildings, as if absorbed; the cascading tinsel of the aluminum sheathing and glass, the towers’ amazingly symmetrical collapse; the businessmen covered in dust to the point where they looked like New Guinea mudmen; all this, plus the incredibly massive scale, lent a certain theatrical unreality to the proceedings, certainly as seen on TV. The cameramen who filmed the event, many of whom were pros from the local TV stations, enhanced this air of theatre simply by doing their jobs, which involved selecting positions and angles that would provide the clearest, cleanest images possible.
The result was an almost uniquely picturesque disaster, and in fact that was the very quality that creeped me out the most about the WTC attack. If not for the fact that there were real people in the planes, on the streets, in the buildings, it could have been some crazed performance art piece, like the time the Ant Farm collective crashed a Cadillac into a stack of burning TV sets.
Hollywood has spent decades perfecting the art of portraying disaster in the most colorful and elaborate ways possible; for some viwers, their impressions are unavoidably desensitised by frequent exposure to the ever-more spectacular filmed explosions of the Con Airs, the Speeds, the Armageddons. This is undoubtedly a contributing factor to Gazoo’s detachment from the harsh reality of the event; it surely fostered a certain detachment in me, in the moments before the human cost hit home.
I guess what this all means, as if we haven’t got enough to worry about, is the possibility of some twisted individual, perhaps with some sort of Luddite axe to grind against technology, thinking “Gee, that sure looked pretty; I’ve gotta try it myself”.
Nothing mitigates the enormity of this disaster; but in terms of the media communicating the sadness and solemnity of the event, less might surely would been more: fewer angles, fewer replays, less crisp lighting and color, somehow a bit less of the tower’s collapse exposed to the prying public eye.
I am absolutely certain that magazines such as Frieze and Contemporary Visual Arts will be discussing the impact of the WTC attack in just these terms in the coming months.
Oh, I hope he doesn’t get slammed to hard.
Honestly.
I’ve so far donated more than 100 bucks to the Red Cross. I wear the ribbon every day. I’m a Navy veteran. I may have to cancel my vactaion - not because my flight is canceled, but because the person I’m about to visit flies in military planes for a living, and might not be there when I arrive.
And might die after I depart.
But still…
There’s this song…it starts out “Oh Lord my God…when I in awesome wonder…”
Awesome is the word The Great Gazoo is looking for. Not ‘cool’ or ‘beautiful’. “Remarkable”, “outstanding” -
according to dictionary.com.
Don’t slam him for looking at that Slo-Mo view of that flight cutting into WTC 2 like a knife through butter and thinking “Duuuuuuuuuuuuude”. It’s so incredible, so out-of-our-world…
He’s not at all discounting the horrible, or unthinkable. Or all the people who are just…gone. Just acknowledging the sheer power and, yes, awesomeness of what happened.
I think the word he’s looking for is terrific, from it’s true meaning.
Very bad, exciting fear and awe, extraordinary and magnificent. Sounds like the reaction the OP is trying to describe.
It’s not a threat, you twit, it’s a snub. And a damned good one.
A threat would sounded like:“If you ever find yourself at a dopefest, I better not see you or you’ll be leaving in a bodybag.” See the difference?
Manhattan was saying that you’re not someone he wants to meet or know. And I agree. Sociopaths (“O wow! Lookit the buildings fall! Look at the fireball of the explosion! People are dying! It’s beeeeauutiiiiful!”) aren’t pleasant dinner-guests.
Fenris
This OP reminds me of when my husband got in his motorcycle accident. He was hit by a truck and thrown in the air about 20 feet. The kids that witnessed it right behind him in traffic got out of the car, ran over to him, and in the midst of saying “Dude, are you OK? Holy Shit!” the one kid just blurted out “Dude, that was fucking awesome! You musta gone at least 10 feet straight up in the air!”
My husband was so shocked by his reaction that he had to laugh a little. Later he laughed a lot. The kid had just frankly never seen anything so “cool” in his life and couldn’t help letting him know about it, I guess.
I don’t know about the OP- I think the analogy to the car wreck is appropriate. You wouldn’t show up at a wake and say “Yeah, he’s dead- but the fireball! Did you SEE that?”
An apology is in order, I think. Many people lost loved ones in that disaster. Even if it’s the most “awesome” (as in “I can’t believe my eyes!”) think you’ve ever seen, now is not really the time to express that.
I also think there is a problem with using the term “awesome”. It sounds to me like it’s being used as in “Dude- lots of people are dead, but that was AWESOME!” as opposed to “I was in awe of the power behind the collapse of that building.” Something about using the term “AWESOME!” makes me think of Keanu Reeves. Even he is probably smart enough not to use it at a time like this.
Zette
I spent a summer in NYC as a bike messenger about seven years ago. Made lots of deliveries to the WTC. Did the tourist thing and went to the top, took pictures, etc. I’m still having trouble accepting the fact that the towers are gone, or that I probably met and talked with people who lost their lives last Tuesday.
So, “awesome” in the sense of “It’s hard to wrap my brain around the magnitude of the disaster”? Yeah, maybe. But “awesome” in the sense of “Wow! It’s better than Hollywood could do!” No. And it’s tasteless and insensitive to even mention it at this time, IMO.
For me, watching it, I was struck that it seemed, “Beautiful in its death throes, like some giant star exploding and steaking out across space.” That doesn’t mean I wasn’t horrified, just struck by the immense asthetic aspect of it.
I was sickened by this feeling, let me tell you.
I do think the OP was insensitive as hell…
But he has a point. There’s a current in human souls that seeks out the unique, the startling, the horrifying and watches, fascinated, as events unfold.
Look how popular Edgar Allen Poe was, Stephen King is, scary movies and books are, the Haunted Mansion at Disney is, car wrecks are, news coverage of disasters is. For God’s sake, in the 1970’s John Forsythe narrated a show called “When Disaster Struck” which was nothing more than footage and accounts of disasters with horrendous body counts.
It’s all part of the apparent human desire to see events unfold, the more dramatic the better. And nothing is more dramatic than death. Even the risk of death is a draw. Skydiving, rock climbing, any of those silly Xtreme games.
Or look at the popularity of first-person shooter games? Who hasn’t played Doom? Or Quake?
As a society we adore violence and violent acts. When a camera captures it the public can’t get enough. God knows I’ve learned that enough covering news. That’s why I retreat to marketing and the trade press. The newsmakers and those who read the news too often give me the willies.
So I understand the OP. I might not want to…but I do.
Reading this thread reminds me a bit of something written by our own Cervaise, in his review of the movie Armageddon:
Well, at the risk of becoming a pariah as well, on a purely aesthetic level, I agree with Gazoo. If I had seen those images out of context, I certainly would have thought, “Man, that was stunning.” Particularly when the second tower fell, the way it collapsed down the middle and evenly blossommed out as it went down - it was, in an architectural and “coolness factor” way, stunningly beautiful.
But, of course, it is near impossible to view the images out of context, so it becomes, as said, horrificly beautiful, a magnificent train wreck and, ultimately, profoundly unsettling that makes you shudder. Like the graceful tornado, like the photographic lightning bolt, like the hand of God coming in the form of Nature, it is only beautiful from a distance.
Esprix
Fenris, I’m surprised. That was not the sentiment expressed by Gazoo at all. I myself had trouble getting my mind around the event. It was too surreal, the sheer amount of death and destruction. I frequently travel into the city on business, and I still cannot imagine what NYC actually looks like, now that the WTC is gone. I felt the same awe as Gazoo. I was struck by the magnitude of the destruction, and for a while, I marvelled at the collision of the 2nd plane, and the collapse of the two towers. Perhaps it was because I was at work, and the streaming Internet video made it seem more like a movie than reality.
But then I snapped out of it. The enormity of suffering hit me head on, and only recently have I been able to sleep for more than an hour at a time.
Was Gazoo insensitive in posting so soon? Perhaps. Did he fail to say in his OP just how he felt about the horror of the attack, and instead focus on the “coolness” of the collapse? Yes. But that does not mean he’s a sociopath. He may not have apologized, but he did finally express his horror in a later response. I notice Gazoo has been flamed repeatedly, but those who have somewhat sympathised have not. Is it because Gazoo hasn’t been here long? Will I receive flames because I’ve only been here a couple of months? I hope not. I’m trying to be honest, and while I don’t agree with Gazoo’s choice of topic, I certainly can’t condemn him for it. I’ve seen better on this board, but I’ve also seen far worse.
It was-if you take it out of context as said-the colors, the plunge, the movement…if you keep it purely physical.
But it was a horrific beauty. Like seeing a volcano erupt-it’s beautiful, but dangerous.
Y’know it’s funny. I’ll be the first to concede that there is sometimes aesthetic beauty in the worst horror.
We closed down my office and I came home at about 10:00 AM that day.
My wife and I sat glued to the TV.
Now, my daughter loves to comment on things on the TV. If she sees a plane, she says “plane.” When something exciting happens, she says “wow!” or “Pretty!”
Somehow though, even though she was only 23 months old she was able to pick up the emotions of my wife and myself, and the tone from the TV.
She knew something was wrong, and though she was fascinated by the film of the disaster.
But, she didn’t say anything, though clearly she was interested, and wanted to.
You see, even a two year old is inherently capable of enough sensitivity to know even without understanding why, that it was not appropriate.