GARGOZO MANUSCRIPT

Main Street; Sardis, Mississippi - Photo from flickr.com My first visit to the Deep South was 120 years after the Civil War ended yet it was painfully obvious who had lost.  I left Memphis and drove south for a little over an hour on Interstate 55 to reach the town of Sardis , Mississippi which lies just north of the Little Tallahatchie River .  The town was first settled in 1844 and grew to become the county seat when the Panola County Courthouse was erected there in 1871.  The town's original name of "Danville" was judged to be too lengthy by U.S. Postal officials so the local folks switched to Sardis - one of the Seven Churches of the Apocalypse from the New Testament Book of Revelations.  Sardis' population peaked a hundred years later in 1970 at 2,300 but has declined 10% every decade since.   I-55 is Mississippi ’s main thoroughfare and a two-hour drive south will take you from Sardis to Jackson , the state capital.  Although...

Image from tera.enmasse.com A post-Victorian period drama that chronicles the lives of some snooty wimps who occupy the household of an  aristocratic xenophobic family – what’s not to like? I bailed on this show a few seasons back when I became unwilling to tolerate another scene where the only characters offered up were the soulless upper crust of British imperialists or a sprinkling of well-meaning imbeciles.     I’ve seen reviews that praise the show for its “satire”, which I guess leaves the door open for others to find elements of slapstick in D.W.Griffith's The Birth of a Nation .   The subtlety of the series’ supposed satire may have gone unnoticed by United States Congressman Aaron Schock who had his congressional offices done over as an homage to the lavish Downton Abbey interiors.   I am confident that ex-Congressman Schock will some day look back and appreciate the irony (a requirement of satire) in having been forced to resig...