EVENT
There are so many things I want to read about and write about, but the task of gaining even the most basic, superficial familiarity is grindingly slow. I’ve discovered this amazing song by an old industrial group, K-Nitrate called Massacre. The voice distortion gives the song its etherial magnetism, that sort of speaking into and through open-ended wind-chimes effect (which we probably hear with more familiarity in latter-day Marilyn Manson), and the beat is straight Depeche Mode. The problem is multilayered… I can’t talk about industrial music with any credibility (and I’m not worrying about Amber or Damien ripping me a new one; I’m concerned with my own standards for setting up and spinning out an argument) until I read up more on rock and electronica and New Wave, and put in some serious listening. I’m doing this: knowing Sam and Sky has helped immensely. That might prepare me to talk about the acts we all know: Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, Skinny Puppy. But how would I come to be able to talk about K-Nitrate, a group I scacely find mentioned on the internet? How can I talk about Massacre when lyrics that clearly reference specific atrocities are distorted to incomprehensibility?
It’s a receding horizon of knowlege; each day I realize I know less and less. I learn a lot. I consume information wherever I encounter it, but the body of human knowledge is so immense and growing so quickly that nobody could honestly hope to keep up.
It may seem that this is more of a “concept” post but I do not want it to be, because I’m not writing about K-Nitrate as much as the desire to write about K-Nitrate.
I want to write about what is going on in the world, but here is the problem:
I could write about Iran, but I already know how I feel and how you few readers feel.
I could write about Palestine and Hamas, but I already know how I feel and so do you.
I can continue to sound off on the Catholic curch (and will continue to do so), but these are intricate, nuanced subjects.
Even James Frey, about whom I thought I’d knock off a paragraph-long polemic yesterday, has turned into a complicated, thourny mess (and hopefully that will happen this week).
And here’s the real rub, because everything I’ve just said is nothing new; it’s a daily problem.
Usually, when my allotment of passion exceeds my allotment of knowledge, I go back to a subject on which I can speak, rigorously and with authority: Flint. I’ve been thinking about Flint as little lately as I ever have, so the timing couldn’t be better, right?
The problem is, what is going on in Flint that I can write about, pick up apart, analyze, try to solve? I’ve talked about Delphi and GM to the range of my ability. I’ve talked about Don Williamson and the City Council. I spent several months railing against Clyde Caldwell and the Housing Commission. Even if nobody else read these posts, they were good for me. Usually, scanning the Flint Journal gives some inspiration, but all that’s going on now is murder.
That’s right, murder.
2005 quite possibly put Flint on the top of the heap, nationally, for murder. (Locals keep your eyes peeled for the inevitable congratulatory T-shirts). Dramatically, too, with some 30% or 40% increase over the prior year. 2006 is off to a roaring start as well, with well on ten already. If we keep this up, we might best our personal record.
I read these articles because they’re the only interesting thing cropping up right now, and I notice things. I’ve noticed that most of the murders are in three tiny neighborhoods (one in which I’ve lived at two addresses). I’ve noticed that all of the victims lately are under twenty or over seventy. I’ve realized with relief that I don’t recognize any names yet.
But what more can I really say about murder?
I wish it didn’t happen. I wish they’d stop killing each other. I wish I’d read about something else, anything else, happening on Alma, Mott, Philadelphia, and Rankin Streets. That’s all there is to be said. It’s not even that that is all that’s reasonable to say. Quite simply, that’s all there is to say.
I’m short on background and short on patience, and my final recourse for a rigorous discussion is a moot discussion in the first place. I’m angry and upset, and it’s partly the fault of Flint and K-Nitrate, but it’s really because I don’t have anything so say about all this shit.
END OF POST.