1/23/2008

Optimizing the Ken Burns experience

Man converts defective digital copy of "The Civil War" for iPod listening and gets instant relief from overdetermined narrative:
The first and still one of the most striking juxtapositions came during the description of the cotton gin's process of extracting the seeds from the cotton boll which suddenly jumped to the doctors struggling and failing to remove the bullet from Lincoln's brain. Uh, whoa. [...] Anyway, it's entirely possible I have 8 more hours of this strange skipping through 1861-1865 and I am super excited to find out if Jefferson Davis' house full of concubines is able to successfully assassinate the vice president.
Contingent history will out eventually.