All I seem to write about is what I watch. There must be some Peter Gabriel quote to re-name this weblog that more accurately describes that. Tonight it was the PBS version of a reality show, what they are calling "experiential history", called Colonial House. It's apparently the new trend in public broadcasting. I've already seen shows about re-creating the conditions for building Stonehenge, for building the Pyramids, and being a Roman foot soldier. Fascinating stuff, really. I think I ended up watching more than half of most of those shows. But now they've graduated up to the mini-series, of which Colonial House is one with four two-hour episodes. I'm not sure I can wait to the end to see who wins!

But really, the first installment of Colonial House was pretty compelling, re-creating the conditions in which the so-called "Pilgrims" lived in when they arrived on this continent in the 1620's, and shoving modern folk to live in them and as they did, and see how they fare. Man, the things we take for granted! The most austere monastery in this country would have nothing on arriving on shores to sheer wilderness and trying to eke out survival. I went to pour myself a glass of orange juice, thinking, "those poor so-called pilgrims never had it this good". The easiest part of the original experience was wiping out Native Americans with disease! Of course, for obvious PC reasons, that was not re-created (but was mentioned).

But that was pretty brave of those first Europeans to come over here. Well, a bunch of them got duped into coming over, which was pretty stupid, but once they got here, that was pretty resourceful of those first Europeans to survive. Well, the ones that did survive, that is. Most of them didn't, they weren't that hardy of a bunch, and the settlements would have been wiped out if more people hadn't arrived fresh off the boat to keep things going. The point is that it must have been horrifying and terrifying and incredibly depressing and demoralizing, quite a low of human experience, to have been one of those folks. Man, you know what? This post is going no where, so I'm just gonna quit while I'm behind.

OOH! But I got my Peter Gabriel quote. Duh! And I didn't even have to go to a different album. It's about TV, but OK.