when i was younger, i suffered from insomnia. i remember being twelve and afraid to close my eyes at night because ronald reagan might pick up the red phone and call in world war three because he was angry and unsettled because someone tried to assassinate him. i was afraid of nuclear annihilation while i slept. i had seen a documentary or something about people seeing the bright flash of nuclear detonation whether thier eyes were closed or not and the next millisecond, oblivion, dying too quickly to feel any pain. i had rationalized that i would need pain to determine the difference between death and a dream. at this point in my life i was awakened most days by that feel of falling which was accompanied by a bright light.
i suffered from a fair amount of angst for a 12 year old. it wasn't just ronald reagan and the bomb, there was this sense that i needed to accomplish something before it was too late. i was and still am pretty hazy on what that something was. it was all tied up with creativity and dying, though. it was all tied up with leaving a record of my existence. something unique, something that said i was here.
of course, if president reagan started armageddon, it was kind of a moot point. unless my 'artwork' could survive nuclear war of course. i guess this leaves me with the options of a) creating a new smart plastic that will retain the form i put it in no matter what's done to it, b) work in some remote location so that i only have to worry about my work surviving nuclear winter, or c) reconsider my audience and start aiming my work towards cockroaches.
the notion of creating something indestructible is a little bit daunting. i mean, what if i were to succeed? the first thing that would happen is that general so-n-so would come take it away to make implements of war. i guess the trick would be to make an indestructible substance that could only be used to make art. now that would be a worthy achievement.
all of this, and today, nearly 20 years later, the white house announces that it would consider using nuclear weapons to retaliate against terrorist acts of chemical or biological nature. isn't threatening someone with nuclear annihilation a terrorist act in it's own right?
