Saturday, February 13, 2010

In the Dry East Rain

A domestic house cat can bite entirely through your thumbnail. I tell you this in case you are curious. No need to go out and experiment for yourself.

A long drive from one end of the state to another. Lots of not being asleep. There is a place in Pasco, Washington where the remains of irradiated humans are evaluated. Seeking knowledge in a warehouse with an autopsy room, I am struck once again by the huge gap between an expert's knowledge and the public's ill-informed fears.

Also struck by how much human remains, parted and tagged and vacuum-sealed and frozen, look like pork chops.

The science fiction fans out here (for I am at Radcon) are very different from PDX. They are younger, more enthusiastic, and gloriously, openly armed. If I had known it was a weapon-friendly event I would certainly have brought some toys, probably Unimpeded and a tomahawk. Or maybe the Criswell.

Good talks with good friends, as always. Some disturbing panels, where it becomes almost surreal how differently I see the world. In a panel on evil, Sarah Palin comes up as an example. I am thinking of mutilated babies; predation and murder and torture. Others think of political opinions with which they disagree. Once again, and I still struggle with articulating this: I am amazed at the human ability to confuse the worst they have experienced with the worst that could happen; the ability to decide that the perceived enemy is somehow the enemy of all that is good. So petty, and so sad.

Watched a demo of armor and weapons and was antsy with frustration-- "Now!" There would be an opportunity and instead of taking it, the person would then prepare to take it, giving the opponent plenty of time to defend. Only once did I see a participant exploit this. Not once did I see one just bypass it and strike.

It was clear how much of the local martial arts training has been influenced by movie choreography. It was also clear how different training to spar or fight was from training to kill. I wonder if I would have been impressed twenty years ago. Probably.

Long talking in the rain in a usually dry country. Warm for this place, this time.

Bouncing for the first time in years, checking ID at a private party. No issues, which I am told is the exception here.

Experimenting, last night, with consciously unconsciously firing muscles. Hard to describe and very much not a word thing. I decide I want my back muscles to jump, but when it happens my conscious mind is completely surprised. The same principle as firing a gun without anticipation, so that the report comes as a surprise. How do I think of this stuff? And , damn, it works. Conscious decision with unconscious execution. Can I apply it in a fight? How many times have I already?

All good.

5 comments:

Mark H said...

Your comments on the panel on evil resonate well with my own thoughts. This seems to be particularly bad among the young...this intolerance of ideas being worse than physical acts. It's truly bizarre to me how people can find mere opinions to be something worthy of physical violence, but the same people view actual criminal acts as ok such as stealing music or books from the internet. It's almost as if the rules of the cyberworld are exempt from the rules of the physical world.

As to your obervations of the weapons/armor demonstration and the change to the martial arts this has been going on for sometime, which I'm sure you're aware, and I categorize it much the same as how the underinformed or less experienced view firearms from the media world to the real world.

Keep up the thought provking posts.

Thanks. Mark H

Unknown said...

Consciousness is highly over-rated. By the time something hits your prefrontal cortex, your subconscious has already gotten bored with it.

Steve Perry said...

I knew about the cat bite. From long ago and far away.

ush said...

On the pork chops thing, that's what struck me most when I went to the Bodies exhibition, Humans basically look like bacon and corned beef under the skin. That and I didnt't appreciate why the femoral artery is considered such an important target until I actually saw it's size...

Anonymous said...

Unimpeded?
Bruce