Drizzt
Member
NL writer explores the world of guns and roses in Anchorage
By Paul Brynner
August 09, 2005
My photographer and I descend the stairway leading to Sullivan Arena’s security entrance. We pass a sign telling us all weapons are prohibited.
Ten seconds later, though, we’re buzzed through the heavy yellow security doors and onto an arena floor packed with what seems to be an arsenal of every possible weapon imaginable. Pearl handled pistols, Ruger semi-automatic shotguns, World War II machine guns mounted on olive-drab armored cars, knives with edges like tiger claws, camouflaged reflex bows and even swords imported from Pakistan.
“I guess they bend the rules for today,” my photographer tells me.
The annual gun show at the Sullivan Arena is in full swing. My photographer goes off to take photos of some cheerleaders decked out in red, black and white ribbons and chanting, “Tighten our defense.”
I wander over to one of the display tables, lift a black titanium Mossberg shotgun off the black velvet dressing. I get a weird surge of adrenaline feeling its lightness, its reality in my hand. Just at the corner of the table, a vendor dressed in shorts and a tank top is saying that he’ll give a free knife to any child who comes along. No one seems to be paying attention.
“Excuse me,” the man says to a passing family. “Would you do me the favor of letting me give your son a knife?”
The father seems embarrassed but nods his head. The vendor pulls a small, polished knife from the display and hands it to the boy.
“Say ‘thank you,’” the boy’s mother whispers.
Across the floor Joe Miller is placing a syringe into the left ear of customer Al Buffone, who seems quite casual as a mass of blue silicone squirts into his ear canal. Miller has been making custom fitted earplugs for use by hunters for several years, perhaps because he’s damaged his own hearing over the years.
“When I was an adolescent I was bulletproof,” he says. “I didn’t need hearing protection and if I wanted some I would just do the old cigarette filter trick.”
On my way back across the hall, I feel as though American history is flashing in panorama against my retinas. Tables are stacked with photographs from World War II, intelligence seals from secret documents, stills of mushroom clouds exploding over the Pacific Ocean.
Through my mind flash the words, “History is pushed forward by the barrel of a gun.”
I find my photographer deep in conversation with a vendor who has a white moustache and is wearing a hat that says, “Kill them all and let God sort it out.”
“You better have one of these somewhere to protect you,” the vendor says when I cut in on the conversation, gesturing to the rifles in his display. “Hell, with the way the poor people are in the Lower 48, I’d want a machine gun.”
We beat a quick retreat, my photographer and I. Famished and thirsty we stop at a sub shop for a bite.
“Does it seem natural to you?” I ask my photographer. “All this hardware? All the guns and ammo? Doesn’t it seem like we’re pushing the envelope, flirting with the darker side of human nature?”
“Everything has a yin and yang,” he tells me.
“I don’t know what that means,” I reply.
“Weird stuff happens. I once got food poisoning and saw faces talking to me from a mud puddle.”
I tell him he’s not helping.
Thirty minutes later, the sun is dipping down behind the tops of the trees as we walk up the gravel path to the 62nd annual flower show at the Botanical Gardens. My photographer wants to know what we’re doing here. I say I need some answers.
Out by the calendula display I run into two botany students from the lower 48 states who are taking photographs.
I ask them if I’m right in believing that plants are basically nonviolent entities.
“Ooh, I don’t know,” says Jennifer Hsueh, from California. “I’ve heard of vines like kudzu that suffocate plants. Their root systems take over.”
“And then there’s carnivorous plants,” says Stephanie Jackson of Arizona. “Some of them trap rainwater and drown flies, and others lure beetles in with their sweet nectar.”
After some searching, I locate horticulturalist Anita Williams to ask her why it is that plants get aggressive. Do plants have an evolutionary excuse for aggressive behavior? Is it because they were once exposed to harsh environments?
“Well, now you’re asking me to get into the psychology of the plants, and metaphysically I’m not ready for that,” Williams says.
For a moment I try to explain to her the urgency of the matter. In a world like the one we live in today, I want to tell her, in a world of smart bombs and bioterror, it seems imperative to want to find some level of natural innocence and harmless benevolence – where else can we look but in the plant world? Try as I might, though, I trip over my words and eventually give up.
“Did you find your answers?” my photographer asks.
“No,” I say. But as we leave the garden I think maybe he’s right. Maybe it’s foolish to dream of a world without conflict. Maybe we have to accept that we’re living in a world of yin and yang – a world of guns and roses, if you will. Trapped between good and evil, it’s our destiny to sink ever deeper into the cosmic mire of conflict without resolution.
Welcome to the jungle, baby.
http://www.thenorthernlight.org/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/08/09/42fa84824539f
I think he needs to stick to the flower shows...
By Paul Brynner
August 09, 2005
My photographer and I descend the stairway leading to Sullivan Arena’s security entrance. We pass a sign telling us all weapons are prohibited.
Ten seconds later, though, we’re buzzed through the heavy yellow security doors and onto an arena floor packed with what seems to be an arsenal of every possible weapon imaginable. Pearl handled pistols, Ruger semi-automatic shotguns, World War II machine guns mounted on olive-drab armored cars, knives with edges like tiger claws, camouflaged reflex bows and even swords imported from Pakistan.
“I guess they bend the rules for today,” my photographer tells me.
The annual gun show at the Sullivan Arena is in full swing. My photographer goes off to take photos of some cheerleaders decked out in red, black and white ribbons and chanting, “Tighten our defense.”
I wander over to one of the display tables, lift a black titanium Mossberg shotgun off the black velvet dressing. I get a weird surge of adrenaline feeling its lightness, its reality in my hand. Just at the corner of the table, a vendor dressed in shorts and a tank top is saying that he’ll give a free knife to any child who comes along. No one seems to be paying attention.
“Excuse me,” the man says to a passing family. “Would you do me the favor of letting me give your son a knife?”
The father seems embarrassed but nods his head. The vendor pulls a small, polished knife from the display and hands it to the boy.
“Say ‘thank you,’” the boy’s mother whispers.
Across the floor Joe Miller is placing a syringe into the left ear of customer Al Buffone, who seems quite casual as a mass of blue silicone squirts into his ear canal. Miller has been making custom fitted earplugs for use by hunters for several years, perhaps because he’s damaged his own hearing over the years.
“When I was an adolescent I was bulletproof,” he says. “I didn’t need hearing protection and if I wanted some I would just do the old cigarette filter trick.”
On my way back across the hall, I feel as though American history is flashing in panorama against my retinas. Tables are stacked with photographs from World War II, intelligence seals from secret documents, stills of mushroom clouds exploding over the Pacific Ocean.
Through my mind flash the words, “History is pushed forward by the barrel of a gun.”
I find my photographer deep in conversation with a vendor who has a white moustache and is wearing a hat that says, “Kill them all and let God sort it out.”
“You better have one of these somewhere to protect you,” the vendor says when I cut in on the conversation, gesturing to the rifles in his display. “Hell, with the way the poor people are in the Lower 48, I’d want a machine gun.”
We beat a quick retreat, my photographer and I. Famished and thirsty we stop at a sub shop for a bite.
“Does it seem natural to you?” I ask my photographer. “All this hardware? All the guns and ammo? Doesn’t it seem like we’re pushing the envelope, flirting with the darker side of human nature?”
“Everything has a yin and yang,” he tells me.
“I don’t know what that means,” I reply.
“Weird stuff happens. I once got food poisoning and saw faces talking to me from a mud puddle.”
I tell him he’s not helping.
Thirty minutes later, the sun is dipping down behind the tops of the trees as we walk up the gravel path to the 62nd annual flower show at the Botanical Gardens. My photographer wants to know what we’re doing here. I say I need some answers.
Out by the calendula display I run into two botany students from the lower 48 states who are taking photographs.
I ask them if I’m right in believing that plants are basically nonviolent entities.
“Ooh, I don’t know,” says Jennifer Hsueh, from California. “I’ve heard of vines like kudzu that suffocate plants. Their root systems take over.”
“And then there’s carnivorous plants,” says Stephanie Jackson of Arizona. “Some of them trap rainwater and drown flies, and others lure beetles in with their sweet nectar.”
After some searching, I locate horticulturalist Anita Williams to ask her why it is that plants get aggressive. Do plants have an evolutionary excuse for aggressive behavior? Is it because they were once exposed to harsh environments?
“Well, now you’re asking me to get into the psychology of the plants, and metaphysically I’m not ready for that,” Williams says.
For a moment I try to explain to her the urgency of the matter. In a world like the one we live in today, I want to tell her, in a world of smart bombs and bioterror, it seems imperative to want to find some level of natural innocence and harmless benevolence – where else can we look but in the plant world? Try as I might, though, I trip over my words and eventually give up.
“Did you find your answers?” my photographer asks.
“No,” I say. But as we leave the garden I think maybe he’s right. Maybe it’s foolish to dream of a world without conflict. Maybe we have to accept that we’re living in a world of yin and yang – a world of guns and roses, if you will. Trapped between good and evil, it’s our destiny to sink ever deeper into the cosmic mire of conflict without resolution.
Welcome to the jungle, baby.
http://www.thenorthernlight.org/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/08/09/42fa84824539f
I think he needs to stick to the flower shows...
An adrenaline pump woulld come in handy in the morning. Quicker than a couple of Mountain Dews,no doubt. 
