Anne With An E

 I've been watching a Netflix series called Anne With An E of late. In fact, I've just finished season 3 of the series and it seems that 'That's all she wrote', so to speak. Of course, the original novel on which the series is based, Anne of Green Gables, followed Anne much further into adulthood, but apparently, while the series was sufficiently popular, there was a funding problem or a change in studio ownership or some such thing, and the series was abruptly cancelled. 

Although I found the series entertaining in general, there were a couple things that I found either odd or annoying. It has very much the feeling of an old-time TV series, one of those that would come on once a week and each week's story would tend to revolve around a rather significant issue or problem. But in the day of all-at-once binging, this constant assault of major conflicts feels exhausting and/or unrealistic. I suppose one would get the same feeling were he to watch old Waltons episodes one after another.

I could not help but be bothered as well by the manipulation of the novel to fit modern day issues and themes and promote modern day liberal sensibilities. Not that I disagree with these sensibilities, but I just can't help but wonder why they wanted to fiddle with a well known classic novel, which certainly stands well enough on its own, and impose narratives not intended by the original author. Why not just invent their own story, echoing Gables if they like, but not pretending that it is Green Gables? Certainly, the novel was overtly concerned with feminism in its early days, and the protagonist is a forward looking crusader in many ways, and yet the story is set in the very early 1900s and loses accuracy in historical reality with the introduction of ideas of equality that would come only much later, particularly as regards race and homosexuality. 

In any case, flaws allowed, it was an enjoyable show, well acted and well done production-wise--an entertaining costume drama.

Now, this next point has nothing to do with the show, but there was one scene in which Anne and her adopted parents take a ride in a hot air balloon, and as I watched this, I seemed to remember being in a hot air balloon myself. It was just something I took for granted as I watched, like 'Oh yeah, I remember that.' 

And yet, the longer I thought about it, the less able I was to put my finger on just how I had ended up in a hot air balloon and with whom. Why did it seem so familiar? Surely, it must have happened. Why else would I think it had? 

Well, I pondered this without end and finally decided that it had to have been with my second wife, who was given to pursuing exotic ventures and dragging me along. So I contacted her just to be sure. I wanted to have the details recalled for me. Turns out, however, that no, we had never gone in a hot air balloon. 

Hmm. Well then, it had to be wife number 3. 

However, contacting her produced the same answer. No. T'wasn't me. 

In short, it seems that I have never in fact been in a hot air balloon. I can think of no other scenario whatsoever that would have found me in a hot air balloon. And yet there it is in my mind. The basket beneath my feet, the thick ropes rising up to the balloon, the gas jet underneath that supplies the hot air. How can it be that I was there and yet not? How have I remembered something that did not happen?

What is going on in my brain?

Pikun is the word in Indonesian. Senility.