A WEEK OF HORRORS, A WEEK OF HOPE: Part I

it’s been a tidal wave of a week.

first, michael crichton died. i thought back to my favorite book of his, SPHERE, with fond memories of the endless beautiful imagery provoked by the story. i remember sitting in my room and seeing a thousand tiny glowing orbs floating through deep aquatic darkness; looking through small glass portals embedded in steel and Jerry wrapping his strange presence around my dreams.

note: apparently the movie ruins all of this. i’ve avoided seeing it for this very reason; it is rare that a movie does a book any justice when you have an active imagination coupled with a habit of creating specific environments and characters to go along with every chapter.

moving on, today is the anniversary of Krystallnacht. you know, i’m not going to make any jokes here, cause when it comes to the Holocaust it will always be “TOO SOON” until the Earth turns upside down and we perish in the fiery combustion of all our wrong-doings and escalating filth. but, i just finished reading WATCHMEN last night, and there is a page that alludes to Krystallnacht during the “alien invasion” that kills half of New York City (if i ruined something for you there, sorry, but there’s a lot more to the book than just that part) and it got me thinking of urban destruction in general.

like, last week there were small riots in philly because the Phillies won the world series.

(don’t you love how cute they made it, with the late nineties ska/punk and everything?)

everyone saw how well the Phillies were doing, and knew that there was a 99.99% chance that there would be a riot, but no one could do anything about it.

of course, the riots weren’t anywhere near as severe  as the alien invasion in Watchmen, or obviously as Krystallnacht, but nothing is ever as extreme in Philly as the rest of the world. we are constantly crawling like sloths in the shadow of New York; the Phillies riots were the biggest city-wide disasters in years and ironically, they were instigated by city natives and inconsiderate suburbians, not aliens or terrorists or a facist regime. and, relatively speaking, nothing really bad happened; there were no reported deaths or rapes or hostage situations. just a lot of damage. pointless, mob-encouraged damage.

when the alien invasion happened in Watchmen, Dr. Manhattan should have/could have been able to prevent it, but several factors got in the way. he has a sense of the past, present and future simulatenously; he can use telekinesis, telepathy, and has all other sorts of God-like qualities. the rest of the Watchmen and a few of the featured New Yorkers had an idea something was up, as did Philadelphians and the Police sector.

so what if Philly had a Dr. Manhattan? he wouldn’t be a global asset, of course, but maybe he could help us out with overly drunk and desctructive sports fans, gun violence, domestic disputes, cop killings, etc. he wouldn’t be as streamlined as Dr. Manahattan but he would still have a fantastic presence. he would look like an amalgamate of

a mummer,

a yeti,

a Communist soldier,

an injured bicycle courier,

and boba fett.

but who knows, a lot of people seem to think Barack Obama is the nation’s new miracle worker, or, the New Dr. Manahattan, DR. USA. some think that he already is a Cyborg.

Who knows.

And, to go back to the Phillies riots, were they the riots to end all future hope of the Phillies winning a world series again? were they a curse to the lift of THE PHILLIES CURSE? can that happen? i mean, Philadelphians acted like the city has been reanimated, risen from the dead, all because of one victory. like this was THE END of being the biggest losers on the east coast. i don’t know. i’ll leave you with a related excerpt from Watchmen, and you decide for yourself.