Six Feet Under

I had wanted to write about the series Six Feet Under about two weeks ago, and the press of business stopped me from doing so.

I had never seen the series before, and I liked it.
Since it is winter, we watch episodic entertainments like Six Feet Under in an immersion form of viewing: we do not watch one episode a week, nor even merely two or three a week; we watch two or three consecutively on the same day, and we find comfort in them as the winds howl outside.

I watched Six Feet during the polar vortex, which started here January 6.
(Now we are watching Jewel In The Crown and will soon start Brideshead Revisited.)

There is a lot about the series I did not like; there were some things I found tedious and boring, but the cumulative effect was overwhelming and positive.

It dawned on me that this immersion method of at least 3 hours of viewing at a sitting is probably a lot like the ancient Greeks used to listen to the poetry of Homer as the bards recited the exploits of Achilles and the Achaeans and Odysseus and his crew: a long session, interrupted by food and drink, long enough to fall under the spell of the words of enchantment, and be taken into the realm of the characters that populate those tales.

The most effective forms of propaganda would be long hours spent in the realms and rituals of fantasy, are they not?
It makes me think of Leni Reifenstahl and the Nurnberg rallies she documented in The Triumph Of The Will.
The will has nothing to do with it, other than consciously entering the sacred lands, lands taboo and haram, because of the power therein.

We are transformed for good or for ill, depending as we choose our enchantments.
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