RMAF 2012

Sunday afternoon is always the slowest time at an audio show, but you couldn’t tell it from the room dominated by Hsu subwoofers. In the only room I encountered on floors 4 and 5 of the Atrium that was playing action DVDs or Blu-rays, the movie’s obligatory, super-hyped explosions were resonating far outside the door. In what I take to be a statement about popular culture and the American obsession with violence, the darkened room was so packed that there was no way I could even stand in the doorway.

I’ll betcha no one in that room lives in Oakland, CA, a city of under 400,000 in population that has experienced, as of October 17, 101 homicides in 2012. The day I returned from RMAF, we had six unrelated shootings, including one fatality. Just a few hours before I wrote this blog, a helicopter circled overhead for 15 minutes, trying to catch someone involved in an incident around the corner at the grocery store. Who needs action videos when I can open the window and hear gunshots?