They have some pretty tough gun laws in Japan, as they do in any other civilized country in the world, and they're not killing each other off with firearms. You have very violent films in Europe, yet it's not causing the mayhem we see in our streets routinely here.
These days, my subjects are murder and mayhem and other terrible things that happen to people - things that are even worse than cutting yourself shaving. And these are not the sorts of things you feel the need to experience before you write about them.
There are methods to creating a mayhem that sounds different from your usual mayhem. Because mayhem and a heavy drum backbeat end up sounding like Green Day or something. But if you put a different beat within it to create some air and lightness, the chaos comes through better.
I live in a post-Christian world in Oxford; it is quite rare to meet somebody who is religious in academic life now, and there is absolutely no tendency for rioting and mayhem, and it is extremely civilised.
I remember, especially like when I was in high school, going to see like Dawn of the Dead and it was like mayhem in the theater and you could barely even watch the movie. It was so fun.
It's Obama's bad luck that he got elected just as the mayhem of the foreclosures, the banking collapse, and the General Motors disaster was accelerating the surge in unemployment to warp speed.
When there's not ten feet of snow on the ground, I ride my bike down the streets of New York, and I literally hear two things out of car windows as cabs pass by me: They either yell, 'Hey, dummy,' or 'Hey, Mayhem.'
Violent movements attract thugs and firebrands who enjoy the mayhem. Violent tactics provide a pretext for retaliation by the enemy and alienate third parties who might otherwise support the movement.
I know that war and mayhem run in our blood. I refuse to believe that they must dominate our lives. We humans are animals, too, but animals with amazing powers of rationality, morality, society. We can use our strength and courage not to savage each other, but to defend our highest purposes.
Our house is a constant mayhem of music, noise, socializing and business. It vibrates life, as a house should.