I never thought I'd find a true antecedent to Twin Peaks but last night I watched Jean Cocteau's Orpheus, shot in the 1950's with the same serial visual-quality as Leave it to Beaver, but replete with super-natural spookery that's just as startling against its mundane tempo and saccharine acting style as The Dancing Dwarf was,

against... well, Thirtysomething. Cocteau's film is just as elegantly devised (as Twin Peaks), but with special effects so simple yet so beautifully rendered that it makes modern fare seem more like Broadway. A particularly delicious film with a delicate spiritual sensitivity, overtones of science fiction, the moral authority of greek mythology, the aesthetic vision of a genius kook.

In addition, last evening after watching a segment on NBC Nightly News with John about pharm league baseball and it's insidious affects on youth culture, we endured a commercial break in which not one--- not two--- not three--- but ALL FOUR commercials were for pharmaceutical drugs.

The right-wing, in general believes that all problems flow outward from the individual will. The left, that individuals are largely subject to the influence of corrupt power-centers.

It's only in the Underworld I suppose, where it's clear to all that both are true...