Sulphur Sighs

A fireworks display costs up to $70,000 to produce, at times.

There are a number of things in the world that I see as unneccesarily extreme: $300+ purses, massive big popcorn movie budgets, bigger and badder weapons of mass destruction.

Add to the list: fireworks displays.

Is there nothing as symbollic as watching money blow up in your face with each rocket blast on July 4th? Turn your head and you see nearby cities' fireworks displays. Everywhere you look you see colorful explosions.

In a recession, I couldn't help but think of a policeman's salary exploding in my face bang after bang after bang. And all of the other city worker salaries blowing up in the nearby cities, and the opportunities destroyed with each display in each state of our country, and all the wasteful schemas our society holds onto because we can't discard of some nasty habits.

In between some of these bangs, I too emitted some "Oohs" and "Aahs". I remarked, "There goes another salary, up, up, blam!" One of my companions for the evening said "Yeah, but I love watching shit blow up." He was serious.

If that ain't an answer to the questions surmised by this stream of thought, I don't know what is.



Radiohead -- "Sit Down, Stand Up (Snakes and Ladders)"