March 4, 2010
Maybe, but mostly maybe not.
“Are you angry? Punch a pillow. Was it satisfying? Not hardly. These days people are too angry for punching. What you might try is stabbing. Take an old pillow and lay it on the front lawn. Stab it with a big pointy knife. Again and again and again. Stab hard enough for the point of the knife to go into the ground. Stab until the pillow is gone and you are just stabbing the earth again and again, as if you want to kill it for continuing to spin, as if you are getting revenge for having to live on this planet day after day, alone.”
- Miranda July
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Only barely mostly
“))<>((“
i’ve seen two movies in the past week that involved stabbing beds or dirt to release anger/despair– one was towards the end of The Outsiders where Matt Dillon asks for a knife and then starts stabbing the pillow in his hospital bed after he hears that Ralph Macchio died. And then last night i was watching the Searchers and the scene where (you presume) John Wayne finds the dead woman and he starts stabbing at the soil, perfect reaction. Sorry Miranda, the anger-stab is not a new thing.
The front lawn either assumes her audience lives in apartment buildings, or that they want to be seen being angry. If I were that angry I would not want to be seen. Maybe she’s making an IPO of anger?
Oh, Derek, I’d forgotten all about that scene in The Searchers. It’s time for my semi-annual viewing.