Sunday, July 16, 2006

Nuclear Fascination

Last night, while exploring YouTube for one of the first times, I started watching A-Bomb explosions. Not that I have any great love for wanton cataclysmic destruction, but for some reason they are just so darn fascinating. I could watch these official 1950's military B-movies for hours.

Come to think of it, 1950's B-movies in general are fascinating to me as well. Strategic Air Command, Bombers B-52, When Worlds Collide -- they're all in my top 100 most enjoyable films list. And they're not all about facing down the Communist threat; in the last one I listed, a planet is after us, something so 21st century that I understand Steven Spielberg is making a new version of it. Plus I'm big on the social commentary Science Fiction dramas, such as The Day the Earth Stood Still. A true classic.

I was happy to see that I'm apparently not the only person with the mindset necessary to watch things be annihilated for hours; there are dozens of these things! A-bombs, H-bombs, in the desert, over water, in the air, underground, they're all there for our viewing enjoyment at any hour of the day or night.

One popular idea is to set nuclear detonations to music, something pioneered by the great Stanley Kubrick. Heavy metal seems popular, but classical and (counterintuitively and, one would think, ironically) relaxing new age tunes provide a peaceful backdrop for watching mushroom clouds wafting to the skies. Here's one of my favorites.

I'm not planning to psychoanalyze myself at this time. Just observing my own peculiarities, that's all.

No comments: