The Return

You can learn important things from telly.

In the 70s, I used to sit with Mum and Dad and watch The Ascent of Man. The narrator and author, Jacob Bronowski, presented ideas that were mostly beyond my ken. Mostly. (Say it like Newt. It’s more fun that way.) I was in single digits and could only grasp some of the more obvious points. Like silly Leonardo and his heavier-than-lead, air-screws. But I felt important and included, sitting with my parents, watching complicated things being presented.

Recently, I had one of those moments where I was reminded of Bronowski, telly and learning larger truths. (The Bronowski moment is here. And probably better seen after my lightweight idea.)

I heard a sublime rant of Eddie Izzard’s this week, where he describes sawing wood. He impersonates the middle bit of sawing, where you aren’t trying to get it started and you’re not worried about it snapping off and falling on the floor. The bit where you can do big, full length cuts. He does a sound effect of the satisfying bit and says, “Where you feel like your dad. Sundays at my place. Saw some wood and then off to watch The Ascent of Man… snore.” It’s said with genuine affection and I went rushing off to a similar place in my mind where telly could be a major contributor to a profound experience.

In one of the later series of Buffy, she dies. She is then resurrected and she comes back all wrong. It’s not what I would call an entirely successful raising of the dead. She is depressed and then elated. She behaves oddly and the overwhelming impression is that you’re mucking with the essential order of things when you forcefully intervene in the birth/death cycle.

The same thing has happened to Poh on MasterChef.