Friday, August 14, 2009

Can We Yell 'Theater!' in a Crowded Fire?

With the 40th anniversary of Woodstock at hand, it brought to mind a piece I wrote for Richmond.com ten years ago --"Can We Yell 'Theater!' in a Crowded Fire?" It was inspired by events at Woodstock 1999.
Awareness of the camera might just be the thing that kills us all one day.

Perhaps we will get to watch it on live television. I picture a nineteen-year-old malcontent with his finger on the trigger of a misplaced Russian H-bomb. He's drinking sweet red wine over ice and gobbling a cocktail of mood-controlling pills that Dr. Jekyll wouldn't touch.

He'll strut and rant for a bank of news cameras long enough for all the networks to have an on-screen logo and a theme music bump for their wall to wall coverage of his story. Finally, in prime time on the East Coast, he'll pop a cap on the world.
Click here to read the entire piece (remember, it's 10 years old.)

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