War Zones

It was happening for you there in the Gulf, unfolding in terms of death-by-routine or just mechanized boredom, the rush of engagement or the daily drag of uncertainty. You were strung out in a strange enclosure, a tenuous bubble of time and violence. In the words of "Hollywood" Huddleston, you wanted to free these Arab suckers so you could get back to being free yourselves.

Meanwhile the folks back home had also crossed into another space, one that was windowed and projected, theorized and speculated, painted in the most graphic terms. But our world was different. You had your ass on the line, we had ours on the couch. None of it was real: we depended on that.

Catastrophes are nation-forming, they weave networks in the air, they call communities into being, a thousand thousand points of light. Compelled, electrified, we tuned in.