Tuesday, May 02, 2006

I Don’t Know Why The Penguin On The Television’s Exploded

In 1973 I watched my share of television and maybe a little more.  I made up for it though, by watching with my family, by making the programs a starting point for discussion and creative thought, and by watching, along with the typical drek, a number of programs that were, in theory, supposed to expand my “mind,” such as it was.  Shows like the news, and 60 Minutes, and Nova, and such like that.  But there was one that definitely stood out among all the others: the BBC documentary series, The Ascent of Man. 

TAOM was a 13-part series hosted by Dr. Jacob “Bloody” Bronowski, an émigré from Poland via Germany who was the very image of the wise professor.  He led viewers through the history of human intellectual evolution, from upright stature through the transition to tool use, agriculture, geometry, astronomy, physics, chemistry, relativity, and on to the present time, which was at that time 1973 – and discussed, at each step, how we as a species were changed in our relationship to each other and to our universe. 

I was really excited about this program before it even aired.  After a single episode I was hooked, and I watched it thereafter as many times as I could: straight through for 13 weeks with two showings per week, and then straight through with repeats again – four times while still in the fourth grade.  My parents watched every episode with me and stayed up, once nearly to midnight, talking me through some of the concepts.  The rudimentary understanding I have of relativity theory really comes from a long conversation with my dad after watching episode 7 for the first time. 

Then one year when my parents joined the local public television station the bonus gift was a copy of the book of the series.  They gave it to me and I’ve still got it.  I’ve read it six or eight times, most recently only ten or so years ago.  It was still a great read – provocative, evocative, all-encompassing, inspirational.  But it has probably been 25 years since I’ve seen the shows themselves.  Kel almost saw an episode once, when she woke up late at night and channel-fanned into it, but the reception was weak and the episode was ending, and then that channel disappeared and I’ve frankly given up hope of stumbling upon it ever again.

And now I don’t have to.  Kel gave it to me for my birthday – four brand-thinking new dvds with a special booklet of production notes.  I’ve barely gotten into it, but these programs are already proving to be subtle beyond my appreciation, or my parents’, back during the old days.

Example: I’ve only seen the first episode so far - Kel has prohibited my watching without her.  In it, our species evolves into a creature that uses intelligence and unique capacities to transform its living conditions, so that it can conform to more different environments than any other mammal.  This was first tracked through changes in the skull, with the rotation downward of the spinal insertion and the favoring of broad stereoscopic vision over olfactory input, leading to an upright gait and the freeing of hands from locomotion so as to be available for tool fashioning and tool use…. From there communities began to develop and we began literally to manipulate our environment, living from it instead of purely with it. 

At one point he’s talking about the immersion of the animal mind in a hunt where it attacks with tooth and claw, versus the concentration of an African tribesman who hunts to survive with a spear and is focused and attentive but can separate himself from his actions even as his quarry falls dead before him, further versus a pole vaulter or javelin thrower, who commits the same kind of energy and focus as a sustenance hunter, but without being driven by sustenance, acting as a purely voluntary agent of an intellectual, not survival, goal.  The camera cuts from a big cat on the hunt – a civet or jaguar, to tribesmen hurling a spear and killing a gazelle, to an athlete gripping a javelin and sending it skyward.  And the music they chose to play during this fast-paced quick-building montage that depicts homo sapiens’ increasing intellectualization of pure brute activity and the will to struggle for survival?  Yes, I didn’t notice it in 1973, and my parents kept it from me for some reason, but the music choice for that sequence was Pink Floyd’s classic of pure psychedelia, “Careful With That Axe, Eugene. 

Damn but that Bronowski’s cool.  I cannot wait to get into episode two.  It’s about agriculture, so I’m hoping for some vintage Tull. 

note: anyone who understands the title to this post deserves a big prize.  good luck getting one from me, though.