The O.B.

A few days ago I saw a crappy commercial for Blockbuster.  A woman walks to her mailbox to retrieve her movies when a snoopy neighbor peers over her shoulder. "Oh, I saw that one and they all die in the end," he says, supposedly ruining it for her.  She turns red hot and marches to the brick-and-mortar Blockbuster to exchange it gratis for another film. This little episode reminded me of a passage in Owen Barfield's 1928 literary manifesto Poetic Diction: A Study in Meaning, a favorite of mine which my grad school was too postmodern to teach. Apart from his slightly condescending tone, I do guard these words:

"The pure prosaic can apprehend nothing but results. It knows nought of the thing coming into being, only of the thing become. It cannot realize shapes. It sees nature--and would like to see art--as a series of mechanical rearrangement of facts. And facts are facta--things done and past." (Chapter 11, "Strangeness")

Dickens satirizes this through Mr.Gradgrind in Hard Times, but Barfield extends the message and is more matter-of-fact. As for Blockbuster marketing execs who assume the worst of their customers, they could use a little straight talk from Owen.