OK, while I'm being mildly abusive, I'd like to add that tragedy by definition needs to center on a person of importance, making the only appropriate contemporary setting for it a narcissistic fantasy landscape. For a more realistic approach to experience, I'd suggest familiarizing yourself with the darker comic and/or horror genres. For more utopian mindsets or contexts, try light opera or screwball comedy. If you absolutely must have your weepies, please confine yourself to melodrama (see Stanley Cavell's 'Contesting Tears' for helpful pointers).

Also, on a related note, I'd really like to go to this event on August 4th. 'High Sign' is one of the greatest flims ever made & Jim Woodring is a personal hero, so if anybody wants to come with & be better for it, I'd be happy to buy you a ticket & probably dinner.