Psychedelia Gothique

Television has always been filled with one hour dramas featuring the full range of modern heroes: doctors, nurses, police, firefighters, soldiers.   Most of them don’t reach too high. I can’t count the number of times I’ve watched a show like Criminal Minds or Castle , only to realize partway through that I’d seen it before. Or the number of times I thought I’ve seen it before only to figure out that it was actually new, but the plotline was so tired and overdone that I’d might as well have seen it. Frankly, the lack of imagination bores the hell out of me. Historical dramas are somewhat better. The best ones find ways to pump new life and new insights into old stories. And stories set in the French court, Victorian England, colonial Africa or the dawn of humankind - depict cultures I’m not overly familiar with. I get a bit irked when someone gets into bed in a medieval castle and their bed linens look like 300 threadcount sheets from WalMart - . Part of making a good histo...

Having seen the movie, The Witch , over this past weekend - I was impressed by its evocation of the 17th century - especially its depiction of how our faith governed every aspect of our values, our perceptions and our approach to life. With no real knowledge or access to knowledge, those early pioneers were awed by and afraid of everything. Imagination blossomed and flourished in that garden of ignorance. Not knowing what was possible and impossible - made everything possible, everything real. The sum total of individual knowledge was contained within our minds and within the pages of the one book most people in the new world had any access to - the Holy Bible . Civilization gradually changed all that. A proliferation of books from a huge range of experts and gifted scribes constantly set new limits and defined the boundaries of possibility. Humanity's growing knowledge base gradually eroded the power of religiosity and ignorance and finally brought our imaginations into check...