I lived in New York City for 30 years and was never mugged. Listening to Jake Warga’s super-vivid account of being viciously attacked by a couple of teenagers more than satisfies my curiosity about the event.
You don’t have to be from a big city to appreciate Warga’s diamond-clear description of assailants in hoodies asking to use his cell phone. Neither do you have to love Dr. Seuss’s “Green Eggs and Ham” to appreciate weird echoes of its refrains in Warga’s statements at the scene of the crime as he tries to explain his situation to the police: “I was not mugged in a tree. I was not. I was not mugged on top of a tall building. I was not. I do not like being mugged. I do not.”
Warga’s narrative revels in nearly nineteen minutes of these kinds of offbeat but right-on-target details about getting whacked over the head in Seattle before being relieved of his laptop computer. He’s an awesome photographer—witness the image of “My glasses” one of whose lenses is stained with blood. Here, as always, his script benefits from his clear-eyed, all but digitized details. From “Dragnet” to “NYPD Blue,” if you’re fond of cops-and-robbers stories—and who isn’t?—you’ll enjoy Warga’s brand-new take on being mugged as a “funny thing.”
This “funniness,” a wacky surreality and suspense, comes through in the background with the piece’s sound track featuring Kodo Drumming music and Placebo’s “Where Is My Mind.”
A Funny Thing Happened
James Reiss
Posted on October 26, 2010 at 05:13 PM
I lived in New York City for 30 years and was never mugged. Listening to Jake Warga’s super-vivid account of being viciously attacked by a couple of teenagers more than satisfies my curiosity about the event.
You don’t have to be from a big city to appreciate Warga’s diamond-clear description of assailants in hoodies asking to use his cell phone. Neither do you have to love Dr. Seuss’s “Green Eggs and Ham” to appreciate weird echoes of its refrains in Warga’s statements at the scene of the crime as he tries to explain his situation to the police: “I was not mugged in a tree. I was not. I was not mugged on top of a tall building. I was not. I do not like being mugged. I do not.”
Warga’s narrative revels in nearly nineteen minutes of these kinds of offbeat but right-on-target details about getting whacked over the head in Seattle before being relieved of his laptop computer. He’s an awesome photographer—witness the image of “My glasses” one of whose lenses is stained with blood. Here, as always, his script benefits from his clear-eyed, all but digitized details. From “Dragnet” to “NYPD Blue,” if you’re fond of cops-and-robbers stories—and who isn’t?—you’ll enjoy Warga’s brand-new take on being mugged as a “funny thing.”
This “funniness,” a wacky surreality and suspense, comes through in the background with the piece’s sound track featuring Kodo Drumming music and Placebo’s “Where Is My Mind.”