Beware the Befuddled

I'm reading 'Manalive' at the moment, which is fascinating. We'll get to GK Chesterton in the blog formally sometime soon, with his masterpiece 'The Napoleon of Notting Hill' and the Father Brown stories topping the list, and 'The Man Who Was Thursday' following closely behind with 'Manalive'. He's a curious writer, that Chesterton, but an entertaining one and not one to let his own faith get in the way of the point he's making.

It's nice to read, to get lost in the pages of a good book, and forget the rest of the world for a while. How wonderful it would be to get caught up in reading fanciful works for the rest of time. How wonderful it would also be to fully convert a good idea into a good story, and get caught up in the throes of creation. There are two participants in the story process, after all, the performers and the audience. The recent slash and burn on 'The Glove' will hopefully lead to a story enjoyable to both sides. It doesn't feel right to throw away so many episodes (figuratively, anyway, as they still exist for the most indefatigable searchers), but it has been done. Now, there will be something different, hard as it is to meaningfully carve a new narrative channel from the one you already tried.

Blast. This is definitely a writer's block day, with not much emerging from the brain box of fate except chatter about rice pudding, 'Hunter', the original 'Wild Wild West' and the ongoing mystery behind the partly missing and soon to be released on DVD 'Doctor Who' serial 'The Underwater Menace'. What a strange combination those all make with 'Manalive', 'Les Trois Mousquetaires' and 'Conspiracion Octopus'! What kind of world is it where all these things coincide with each other? They also coincide with desperate migrants being turned back at borders and caught in political limbo, which is even harder to comprehend. Can you believe that all of this still happens here, even after decades of supposed enlightenment and progressive thought?

The world is better inside 'Star Trek' than it is outside, or in many other of those more idealistic shows. We can all stand to learn how to be a bit more humane instead of plain human.

O.