Peripatetic Negative Qualities

Say which has more allure: to understand
The future, or to see the past more clearly.
All time subjects itself to make believe
And myth, imagined like a woman walking
Her dog ignores the fact the leash has wrapped
Around the animal’s front leg, and she
Keeps walking. For her all is well, the walk
Is fine, the day is fine, the dog is fine,
But for the dog, but for the grace of dog,
Nothing goes well, although it is a walk
And dogs do love a walk. Walk with me then
And say which you prefer, acknowledging
All the imaginary accuracy
With which you view the past, project a future,
Misplace the present, as if the air swarmed
With changes and revisions, now and then
Seen over and again, corrected to
A perfect indecision suspendu.

You see the woman in a previous now.
Where she is going is imaginary,
A hypothetical seen in a now
Adjacent to the now of seeing her.
However, I consider what she misses
While walking more important than the when,
The leash entangled, wound about the dogleg
More problematic than the sequence of
Attention, mere meandering of focus.
The four dimensions we move through are not,
Like odes to birds that never were, firm earth,
Though we walk through the shadows and believe
By making up beliefs about the way
We make a solid, fixed, forever ground
Beneath ideas, underneath the feet
We watch the woman and her dog believing,
We and they, different details, alas,
Half knowing all along this too shall pass.

Not knowing if you can help me find these
Things, still my heart is riding on your gaze,
If you can take me there, and make me care.  

KLK
12/16/15

The Twilight Zone Revisited and Reviewed: Walking Distance, Season One, Episode Five

Inspired or perhaps hoodwinked into reviewing and revising my opinion of The Twilight Zone, I'm watching Walking Distance. As a child, I saw the ham-handedness, the melodramatic obviousness of what were and are supposed to be Whoa! mind-blowing concepts. For example, in this episode, our man Sloan remarks in the drugstore how the proprietor was always sleeping in the backroom up until he passed away. The soda jerk is a kind of cardboard character who just listens to all the ruminations. Then after Sloan leaves, the jerk walks up to the backroom and we see the old man sleeping in the chair, as if we couldn't be left to wonder. No, we have to be bludgeoned with it, and there's this throwaway dialog about needing more chocolate syrup.

What I failed to appreciate as a child was the missed opportunity for humor. Like Kafka, these episodes are actually quite funny and could have been done as a parody, even back then. Like the original Star Trek, there's an over-the-top ridiculousness that I believe got lost in the misplaced, earnest sincerity and adolescent sensibility which pervade these episodes. Star Trek had a sense of humor about itself; it was ridiculous even to me as a child but I was still vastly entertained.

Walking Distance continues, and even though we already know the setup, every encounter with the townsfolk hammers home what would have been obvious to any actual person in such a time-warped setting. Clothes, buildings, every little detail would have shrieked to anyone not overwhelmingly obtuse -- something like the audience of the show who needed all these clanging clues to the fact the guy is back in time in his hometown, WOW.

Okay, so as a springboard for some pathetic nostalgic musing, "I wonder what that would be like?" in the weak imaginations of viewers this is not entirely horrible. However, what I find even more telling are quotes by Rod Serling criticizing contemporary tendencies in TV production to follow the leader with Westerns and private eye shows both of which arguably have just as much imagination-inspiring quality as Twilight Zone episodes, albeit in very different, emotional directions.

Similar to Hitchcock movies, Rod Serling's TV baby struck me as overrated when I first watched it. Later, when someone explained to me the production and story boarding skills Hitchcock's movies evince, I still came away with the conclusion that the subjects and treatment of subjects overwhelmingly made his films mediocre compared to Citizen Kane, or even an Astaire-Rogers musical. Emotionally, an action movie or Western like The Big Country was ultimately more satisfying. I was more blown away by the original Planet of the Apes, not knowing in the beginning where it was going, and when the first ape on horseback appeared, I was interested to see how it played out. Of course, the film kind of went downhill from that point for me but that one moment was good enough.

I doubt anyone will change his or her mind about these matters. Enjoyment remains in the mind of the audience member and, as with comestibles, the French expression holds true, each to one's own, but I do hope my observations will inspire or perhaps hoodwink others to reflect a little more while consuming.

KLK

12/16/2018

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5959vg