Barnabas Collins, global warming, time travel and the neolithic So I'm watching daytime TV and it occurs to me: Barnabas Collins. That marked the beginning of the end. He sank his black and white teeth into our necks, so to speak, way back in the 60s. Yes, the 60s. Of course. It all goes back to the 60s. While a very small minority around the world said, "fuck it, this is ridiculous," the PTBs, the ratbastards, produced "Dark Shadows." Get it? Dark shadows. For the minority, one look at old Barnabas and it was like, "are you kidding me?" It certainly creeped me out.
But they were dead serious, excuse the pun, and the majority fell under Barney's spell. It heralded, quite consciously, I'm sure, the beginnig of the new Neolithic. TV had finally been developed into the ultimate cultivation tool -- only this time, the crop was peoples' minds. "Dark Shadows" was a rush job to inoculate us against the 60s virus. Hence the poor acting and production values.
From the Wikipedia
neolithic entry:
A significant and far-reaching shift in human subsistence and lifestyle was to be brought about in those areas where crop farming and cultivation were first developed, then gradually improved. In these areas, the previous reliance upon a more nomadic hunter-gatherer subsistence technique was at first supplemented, and then increasingly replaced by, a reliance upon the yield produced from cultivated lands. These developments are also believed to have greatly encouraged the growth of settlements, since it may be supposed that the increased need to spend more time and labour in tending crop fields required more localised dwellings. This trend would continue into the Bronze Age, eventually giving rise to towns, and later cities and states whose larger populations could be sustained by the increased productivity from cultivated lands.
Substitute "mind" for both "crop" and "lands" and "free thinking" for "nomadic hunter-gatherer subsistence technique" (note the use of the intentionally derogatory "subsistence"), and you get the idea.
A significant and far-reaching shift in human subsistence and lifestyle was to be brought about in those areas where mind farming and cultivation were first developed, then gradually improved. In these areas, the previous reliance upon free thinking was at first supplemented, and then increasingly replaced by, a reliance upon the yield produced from cultivated minds.
The SOBs time-traveled, so to speak, to the Neolithic for inspiration! It's obvious.
The only thing I can't explain, given the power concentrated at the top due to the Barnabas Collins/TV nexus, is the lack of concern for global warming. Must be the all-consuming power of TV programming.
Consider:
I was ten years old when I came home from school to find my mother. As she always was, watching a soap opera. But this soap was different, it had a vampire in it and I was at first scared. The vampires name was Barnabas. I continued to watch the show and as time went by my feeling change. At first I felt sorry for him because of what had happened to him. Then slowly I began to like him. He was an interesting character. Finally I loved him because each show I watched became thrilling as I watched him.
I don't know about you, but I'm entranced. Nothing more thrilling than watching the PTBs trash the globe. And that goes for them, too. Top of the world, Ma! screams Bush as the last reel slips from the projector.
We can only hope that hunter-gatherer subsistence will survive.
