More...

10/17/2010

Weimar Shore

Coming Soon to a Channel You Don't Get

A conversation last night gave me the idea for a great television show. It would be a historical recreation of the decadent heyday of Weimar Germany, but shot in the style of a low-budget reality show. See what the cabaret was really like. Since reality show characters seldom directly acknowledge the presence of the camera, it wouldn't be all that anachronistic. Just a thought.

What I actually wanted to talk about was more along the lines of this. We cannot fully envision the End of History, render its concrete reality in the form of an image. Only when it is upon us will we fully see its shape. But perhaps in the present we can come to understand it better, not in gazing upon it directly but in spying its reflection in the water, by examining its shadow. For it is a deathly pall that tumbles from the future upon our age; the end of history casts a foreboding shade, the chill brisk nihilism that lies at the brink of re-enlightenment.

I hope that by attempting to step back from the present to gain perspective, to fit it all in the frame, I'll tentatively stumble into the future, like walking backwards into a strange new new place. I want to write about the present from the perspective of the future, inevitably having to allude to a future present that logically emerges from this one.

The first hurdle I anticipate is that I'll effectively be trying to write fiction loosely based on the present, betraying whatever feelings I might have of it. I think this would be a pretty baring experience, like streaking, this unmediated unprovoked self-revelation. I guess time will tell. Maybe I should buy a trench coat.