Recent events have meant that the column which I was going to write today will appear next week. In it, I will praise the arrival of summer, talk about some upcoming music and events and introduce you to a budding Young filmmaker.
Today’s column is being written from the perspective of an old, white, straight man, which is the only perspective that I can speak from with any authority.
I hope that no one thinks that I was angry when I wrote my last column. If anything, I was just disappointed, especially with the Hall and Oates concert which we attended last year. I had paid a fair bit of money, (and don’t get me going on the ticket reseller scam, or I WILL get angry!), for some ostensibly choice seats, only to be confronted by a writhing geriatric “mosh pit” poised between the stage and ourselves. Anyone who reads this and who wishes to assail me with accusations of “ageism”, I am 63 years old, so take your best shot, although the ice beneath your feet will be very thin indeed 😉!
I hope that no one thinks that I was angry when I wrote my last column. If anything, I was just disappointed, especially with the Hall and Oates concert which we attended last year. I had paid a fair bit of money, (and don’t get me going on the ticket reseller scam, or I WILL get angry!), for some ostensibly choice seats, only to be confronted by a writhing geriatric “mosh pit” poised between the stage and ourselves. Anyone who reads this and who wishes to assail me with accusations of “ageism”, I am 63 years old, so take your best shot, although the ice beneath your feet will be very thin indeed 😉!
In June 2012, Amazon picked The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker as one of the month’s best reads. A combination coming-of-age story and apocalyptic page turner, the novel focused on how people would react to a changed world, where “the Earth’s rotation slows, gradually stretching out days and nights and subtly affecting the planet’s gravity. ”
I’ve been wracking my brain for the last 48 hours wondering how I was going to make a suitable contribution to this blog without looking frivolous or uncaring about the reality of what happened in Boston this week. There are no words for the massive shock, sadness and anger that has engrossed us all; The killing of 20 children in Newtown left me feeling just as helpless and lost…as did 9/11 so long before it.
I don’t know that humans have developed a coping mechanism that allows us to naturally process tragedies on an apocalyptic scale. How do you survive and process a Tsunami? Earthquakes? Tornados? The people of 
Pompeii were the lucky ones – they died instantly; the people of the Nazi death camps, Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Chernobyl and other unimaginable atrocities, not so much. And as empathetic beings we feel most outraged when confronted with the savagery of human error or human-on-human carnage. We cannot process this kind of trauma.
Bullseye Records of Canada
Segarini: Don't Believe a Word I Say 