a sigh about bombs

something's been blowing me, fr.

to be in the heart of empire or nettled by its veins is to be IV-dripped its doctrines on a daily basis. at our luckiest, we can sidestep the more blatant fast-food propaganda. eating is a necessity, though. and it’s hard to know how the things we consume affect us; what ideological microplastics are sneaking into our bloodstreams.

one such trojan horse in popular culture is the hollywood spectacle of the bomb. the cinematic explosion slowly anaesthetising the public consciousness to the propulsion of death. we grow up seeing these blasts as grounded siblings of the firework – roaring climaxes that punctuate the orgasmic destruction of a blockbuster’s villain, consuming the baddie absolutely in a lathering inferno, a pyrotechnic celebration of the hero’s victory. Sebastian (Kevin Bacon) being dropped by Linda (Elizabeth Shue) from the ladder of an elevator shaft into a swirling pool of flames in Paul Verhoeven’s Hollow Man (2000) demonstrates the oh so familiar arithmetic in hollywood’s narrative structure, one that coaxes us into understanding explosions as hygienic obliterations, pristine capital punishment, the cleanliest way to snuff out life.

in a lot of ways, that is exactly what an explosion is. demise delivered in a dense package, touch cordoned from culpability; i push a button here, death happens there and my finger is spared the squelch of blood. the bomb is fire-and-brimstone magic. causally coherent but as accountably unfathomable to our caveman brains as actualising infinity into a concrete amount of matchsticks.