Zeitgeist: Watching Television

Introduction

     Zeitgeist posts are first person accounts of various subjects that strike me enough in my day to day life to write about. The title maybe ironic, only time will tell.

Watching Television

I am watching the BBC's Life.
The Discovery Channel is involved.
It is terrifying.
Nearly every moving image
is a stunningly
                    captivating
                                    composition.
My first instinct is to believe it is real,
but it is not real
                       not my reality
                       it is surreal.
It is an interpretation of a reality
through one or many other hands and eyes.
                       And ears.
     A piano in front of a picture screen.

I begin to forget about the beautiful
 images moving in front of me.
I wonder why it cost so much
to capture these images?
I wonder how I could capture
these same images
with less money and different people.
How can I play my own piano in front
             of a picture screen?

I wonder how such an incredible wonder
such as this digital artifact can be made
symbiotically with nature.
I think the BBC really is throwing their money
at the right thing.
The Discovery Channel too.
Honestly, I do not really trust
The Discovery Channel's credibility.
The BBC has Planet Earth on its resume.
This is more of a brand collaboration.
                         Or at least I think so.
I get skeptical sometimes.

Looking up again at the moving pictures.
A brown salamander thick with slime slithers
down a mud hole. It gulps up a mouthful
of mud and scurries back up the tunnel.
The salamander spits out the glob of mud
a top a pile of other mud globs.
I say out loud "that is a bummer."
I realize that the continuity of what
I am writing is no longer chronological.
I have set this down and walked away.
I have picked this up again and reread it
and I write it again. Rewrite it again.
I find my excuse in Quentin Tarantino,
though I would never admit.
              Whoops!

From these moving pictures and captured
sounds I learn about birds:

"One of the advantages to being a bird is that you can escape your enemies by going airborne."
-Oprah Winfrey, Life, The BBC, -ahem- The Discovery Channel

I learn birds can evolve to be selfish bullies.
What can you expect, though
they were raised by dinosaurs.

Penguins are an exception.
I'll let Oprah explain:

"Like mammals, penguins form strong bonds with their young."
-Op Win, Life, BBC, The D Chan

Can I give you some advise?
Don't fuck with pelicans.
They are hardcore.
Jesus Christ. They eat their young.
Watch this series.
It is worth it.

And afterwards splash some beak water on the ones you love.

"In the end birds are less about where they live, than how they live, and that has always been a matter of surprising intelligence. Strong relationships and perhaps a flair for the dramatic."
-@oprahwinfrey@BBC@disco_chan

PSA- Books hammer it home
 because it is someone working
with the only thing they truly have
other than their senses.

Suggested reading:
Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
God Is Dead by Ron Currie Jr.

This is when I wonder who I am writing this for?
Other than myself, of course.

Aaron C. Molden