L1’s words of wisdom..
Do you remember going on those little rides when you were 5 years old?
I’ve gotten nostalgic for the feel of them.
Real roller coasters are behemoths of plastic and steel,
generally with shapes that are based upon practical purpose.
But those rides for tots have all sorts of classical shit.
Boats. Fire trucks. Motorcycles. Elephants. Dragons. Probably pandas, at least somewhere.
The vehicles have a realistic texture. The creatures are sometimes to scale.
They feel like antiques, which adds to the mischief and a sense of premature adulthood.
This gives me the hunterian opiate. Complimenting something which is really much cheaper and in most ways inferior.
Giving something too much credit while knowing you are. Yeah, that’s what I’ve been trying to explain for over a year.
The tiny boats especially get me. So very nautical in just a small ring to nowhere.
I rode real roller coasters when I was 13 and 14. I went to Six Flags: Great Adventure. I’d seen those ads since kindergarten. It really lives up to the hype.
They really don’t add much to the coasters to give them an individual flair of the artistic kind. I’m sure they’re planned to have a soul of their own, based upon how many winding loops there are or how sharp the angles are.
Basically, the coaster is the experience, the way it feels when you move, combined with its paint job, and the frilly bony edges on whatever fragments of the coasters are available.
They still have quite some majesty despite feeling so lacking in creativity in form.
Your heart swoons, wondering, what combination of technical marvels, creative input, and available resources made this roller fucking coaster possible to even get built? It’s not really love, it’s more like the hunter in you getting comfortably jealous.
These rides help keep you motivated. They give you strength so universally.
I remember there was a kiddie park near me that got shut down just as I was getting too old for that kind thing. They had some nice fucking helicopters.
I felt 15 feet off the ground, but it was probably more like 6.
Little kids know the rides are replicas, but they’re still very satisfying. Kids play with toys despite knowing they’re fake. Maybe it’s preparation for knowing that everything doesn’t quite have the value that it presents.
Kids don’t just play with toys because of a sensory need. They want to have some power over something while also being gentle and accommodating.
I don’t write about children much. But I think maybe we need to see what gives them the deepest satisfaction to understand what makes adults feel like not assholes. To tame the shit out of us, and maybe not be bastards to those young enough to actually be called innocent.
Basically, what I’m saying is, adults at their worst feel like they have the inquisitive and careful energy of kids. So the hardest thing is telling an adult that they’re a tyrant.
You want to know who has the sickest aesthetic? Those creepy 50-cent rides, with the misshaped bootleg Mickey Mouse and shit like that. Those are pieces of art. I mean, they’re probably mass produced with little sincerity at this point. Or, maybe they were sincere, back when some guy really made it his craft.
So I’m just trying to be funny. Trying to make your head hot. Trying to relieve your heart. Trying to make you aware of your hunterian opiate.
Trying to put you directly inside the seat of everyone you dislike, or even your older self. So that nothing anybody else does gives you ire that pushes you to the internet to rave about it.
Looking back, that’s probably what the earliest roller coasters were. Super fancy and weird with very little depth in how the object moves compared to your ordinary rail car.
At various points in roller coaster-construction history, I’m sure you’ll find lots of adapting to the impractical sort of shape of a passenger’s car-thingy, rather than the design of the ride coming first.
That’s very hunterian opiate-inducing, wouldn’t you say? Artistic flair and competent construction grinding against each other like flint and metal. Always bound together a bit.
How very much an emotion of its own.
You daydream about things perfectly out of place after reading weird, controversial, and awesome posts online all day,
and we don’t even give a name for this coaster in your heart that longs for value.
So before you go for a rolling ride, recognize the warmth in your eyes. That’s where all the stuff that makes you feel like not a bad person lies.
The Found Emotion (Invoke Yourself) 