The History Channel Is Pre-School

Vanity

[withteeth]

If I was a better writer, maybe I could get across just what’s wrong with The History Channel. I wish Lileks would tackle the subject someday.

It’s not just the conspiracy series. It’s not even their fascination with UFOs, Area 51, and Ghosts (though that can make me furious). Perhaps what bothers me the most is the spiraling narrative technique, and the repetitive presentation of the same “re-enactments”.

For instance, tonight about the Lincoln assassination. I think they showed John Wilkes Booth ascending the stairs and patting his vest-pocket for the derringer at least eight times, while the narrator explains what most of us have known since 5th grade. Eventually, over the hour, some detail is fleshed out as the scene is shown again and again, but I’m almost sure they got some important facts wrong. (Wasn’t Seward in his sick bed? They portrayed him napping on the couch when he was attacked.) Maybe I’ve got that wrong.

The History Channel also loves to present their re-enactments in black and white, and with a shaky camera, like it’s the Blair Witch Project or something. I know better, I know that photography in those days couldn’t even capture a moving figure, but what about future generations? What will they make of this sleight of hand? Will they think there were hidden cameras, showing JW Booth making a bank deposit?

I want to see old photos. And for f_sake, not the ones from the text-books and encyclopedias either, everyone is so familiar with.

This puts me in mind of modern history museums, as well. I was disappointed with much of the Smithsonian, a few years back. All that interactive video. Touch screens. It was like being at home with the internet.

Speaking of the internet, I must be terrible with search engines. There must be a few sights that show old newspaper articles. I’m interested in “contemporary accounts” and the best site I’ve been able to find is the New York Times’ “This Day In History”. I have a lot of complaints about that too, but for another day.

Now that the election is over and we’ve made some history, I want to go back to reading some history (or watching some decent documentaries). But I’ve got to stay away from the usual cable fare.

Pardon this Sunday evening rant. I should have gone to the video store, maybe.

I’m going to start going to the library again, for some interesting out of print books. Cable TV and the internet are over, for awhile.

[Brainhose]

What bugs me about the History Channel is their constant promotions of Hollyweird movies.

[withteeth]

UFO Monday, tonight: cattle mutilations!

[Nowhere Man]

That's probably as good as you are going to get on a search engine, for free and not leaving the house. You could try Harper's Magazine site (sorry, can't give you the link, but you could search it!), they go back over 100 years and it would be interesting to see if they reveal or hide their old issues, some of which are tremendously politically incorrect by today's standard. FWIW I think they were anti-slavery, but also very, extremely anti-Catholic. For the full editions of the old NY Times, etc. I'm pretty sure you'd have to go to the library and get the microfilm out. I say this based on trying to help my daughter with her research paper. With her college ID she can access the school's library from anywhere, you can get into an amazing amount of stuff, even Lexis/Nexus but you can't get much from the Times, just an abstract. She was stumped, but I said, I think you need to go to the microfilm.

I ought to check that out. I'm also a Victorian/Edwardian Era junky as well. A lot of those old women's magazines such as Harpers, Delineator, Ladies Home Journal, Women's World, etc., have lots of good literature in them, some of them were even penned by famous authors such as Kipling and the illustrations, some were made by Charles Dana Gibson among others. There is a lot of history there.

[jocon307]

"There is a lot of history there."

Yes, yes, it's amazing. Love the Gibson girls, that I do. I'm one of those people who really wish I had lived in an earlier era.

Good luck, happy history hunting.

[Nowhere Man]

Yes, yes, it's amazing. Love the Gibson girls, that I do. I'm one of those people who really wish I had lived in an earlier era.

Sigh..... Me too. BTW, I also like John Chandler Christy's depiction of the women of that era too. There was another illustrator of that era, his last name was Flagg, for some reason, I can't remember the first. One of the fashion illustrators from that time who did work for Ladies' Home Journal, Women's Home Companion, and Women's World, IIRC, was M.E. Musselman or she was sometimes called "Emma Musselman." I enjoy her work too, I tried to google her down, but I get pitiful little info on her. I know she kept working into the 1920's atl east, she did a cover to a piece of piano music too.

Call me nutty, but if I had a time machine or a "sliding device" to an alternate Earth, I'd consider using it. A side note, the science fiction side of me likes the "steampunk" genre where the Victorian Era never died but went on to develop things like steam power cars, zeppelins, mechanical computers, steam powered robots, and so on. The old TV show "Sliders" was going to feature an alternate Earth where it was basically Victorians with current technology. Anyhoo, another online friend of mine had the same wish as we do, he would have loved to work at a government job in the Colonial Office somewhere and I'd probably be a mas scientist. B-)

Good luck, happy history hunting.

Thanks. I know it can be a job and a half. B-)

[jocon307]

LOL, never heard of that steam-punk stuff, very interesting. I was wild for the Flintstones as a kid, I just loved the inventive little things they came up with, like the little dinosaur Wilma used as a clothes iron. I liked the Jetsons too, but it always seemed to me that the Flintstones was a little more challenging.

Yeah, I like old stuff, sometimes I get in a modern mood, but not very often. Although after a life lived in blue jeans, would I really enjoy those old hoop skirts? Probably not!