“Just don’t let the human factor fail to be a factor,
at all.”-Andrew Bird
A Study of the Everyday Curiosities of Human Behaviour
As out of print as Kilgore Trout.
Monthly Archives: December 2011
Alexandra Luddy
A fifth-grader was killed the other day in an apparent murder-suicide. It appears that Alexandra Luddy, who attended Jeff Road Elementary School in Perinton, NY, and her grandfather were shot to death by the girl’s mother, who then proceeded to turn the gun on herself.
Her mother, Penelope Luddy, sent her husband out to check on an ill family member, and when he returned he was met by what most would see as any parent’s worst nightmare.
I think what gets to people most about this is just how, but lack of better terminology, “normal”, the woman was. Those who knew her remain in shock. Everyone’s been rattled, obviously. Mrs. Luddy seemed to be the perfect wife and mother; she was a room mom, a member of the PTSA, she helped out in the planning of school events whenever asked, she volunteered, and so on and so forth. So, as everyone seems to be thinking, what gave?
The local news service answered by saying plaintively, she was “distraught.”
So if she was, then, as the authorities so lightly put it, “distraught”, why didn’t anyone step in to do anything? There are only two explanations. Either no one noticed, suspected, say anything that could be tips toward her inner turmoil; or everyone knew and no one did a thing.
It’s happened in the past and it will happen again. Communities, parents, families, individuals don’t involve themselves, people look the other way, simply so that they don’t have to get involved. They don’t have to do anything. After all, there’s no self-interest in putting one’s self or family in danger just to help someone they may or may not even know all that well, right?
As may have been the mentality regarding this.
But that’s just a thought. It could have been, of course, that no one knew a thing. No one, absolutely no one, saw it coming. I don’t know whether I hope that’s the case or not. If it was, it goes to show just how little we know about each other as humans.
The nature of the crime suggests that it was premeditated. Mrs. Luddy asked her husband to leave the house, and then murdered her father, her daughter, and herself, which certainly would lead investigators to believe she was fully aware of what she was doing at the time.
But awareness does not imply clarity. I doubt there was any iota of clarity in her mind that morning.
“Maybe there were family problems…maybe it was self-loathing; she only killed from her own bloodline…maybe…perhaps…but it could’ve been…”
The point is, no one knows. People are terrified because they just don’t know. They don’t understand. And they’ll probably never understand, never get the opportunity to. I certainly don’t. I can only speculate.
My younger brother is in the sixth grade. He knows another boy who lives on Alexandra’s street. He was home that morning. He told my brother that he heard gunshots and a little girl screaming. My heart goes out to that boy, because chances are it’ll be years before he stops replaying those sounds in his head, if at all.
I hope his parents get him into trauma therapy or something. It would probably at least be good to look into.
I suppose that all in all, this whole thing just goes to show how very little we know about the human condition.
Requiem for a Dream
I watched it for the second or third time in my life this morning. And then I remembered just how incredibly well done it is.
Darren Aronofsky is a genius. Hands down. He’s got to be one of the best directors of all time. Why? Because he doesn’t need a serial killer or a monster or any amount of fiction in order to make his films horrific. Stomach-turning, wincing, cringing, “I can’t watch this” kind of scary. There doesn’t have to be an excess of violence or gore, because what he manages to do is take events that could actually happen in real life…and spotlight them.
As is the case in Requiem for a Dream. The main characters, Harry, Ty, Marion, and Harry’s mother all manage to get so caught up in something that they’re aiming for that they drown in the process. Figuratively, anyway. The three kids, Harry, Ty, and Marion, start out as simple drug users. Not necessarily junkies or addicts, but more almost “conversational users”, for lack of better terminology. Marion, who is dating Harry, expresses how she’s always wanted to start her own store showcasing her own fashion. So Harry talks to Ty about it, and they formulate a plan of funding the project by selling drugs. But what they don’t realize is, as they get deeper and deeper into the drug world, they’re becoming hooked. The problem is that they never recognize themselves as addicts until it’s too late. Until Harry’s got an infected arm from shooting up all the time and Ty’s in jail, having been caught when he took Harry to the hospital to get his arm checked out. Meanwhile, Marion’s at home, selling her body to pay the rent.
If you’ve got a weak stomach, don’t watch the film. Not because of gore, even; it’s just a hard thing to stomach. You’re sitting on the couch watching these kids doing all the wrong things for all the right reasons. Watching them completely and utterly ruin their lives in pursuit of a perfectly innocent cause.
The filming is incredible. The camera angles, the representation of drug use through a series of brief images and sound effects, and looped sounds in the background as well as a fantastic soundtrack. It’s most definitely in my top ten list of favourite films, up there with A Clockwork Orange and Gummo, both of which you should also see.
All I’ll say is, I never thought a movie could manage to instill fear of my own refrigerator in me. For serious, man.
Lesson learned: Never do drugs, kids. Never.
Blogs like this make me want to get a tumblr.
I was listening to Pandora while working on homework today, my Andrew Bird station, and all of a sudden the song “Perpetuum Mobile” by Penguin Cafe Orchestra came up. It was familiar. At first I couldn’t peg where I’d heard it before, though I knew I associated it with a good memory, not just due to the upbeat melody of the song.
It took me a moment, then it clicked. Mary and Max, the black comedy/heartwarming claymation I’d watched a year or so ago. “Perpetuum Mobile” was the recurring theme song throughout the film. And damn, was that a great film. I’m going to have to watch it again at some point. It was sweet. It was clever. The narration was witty, but not crude, as is the case in too many movies. It was a strange movie in that it was sort of borderline between an adult’s movie and a children’s film. The formatting was that of a children’s movie, but the content was adult. It was phenomenal.
If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend you do. I’m fairly certain it’s on Netflix Instant Streaming. Least it was last I checked (a year ago). Unfortunately, they take things off of instant. They took Pulp Fiction off!
Anyhow, here’s the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgRjB8PEDkM
A Study of the Everyday Curiosities of Human Behaviour 