I am not a Number !!!!

 Posted on 11/25/1997 by J. Michael Straczynski <71016.1644@compuserve.com> to CIS


PAUL SHEWARD <100256.1563@compuserve.com> asks:
> What's up Joe, hectic schedule or too many late nights on the web
> ?

"Touchy, touchy! What's up Joe, hectic schedule or too many late
nights on the web?"

No, I do sometimes get annoyed by people whose worldview is so
small that they think that interrogation began with "The Prisoner" TV
show and don't seem to know anything about the real world...and want to
narrow you down to their view by saying that what you did springs from
there, rather than the aforementioned real world. Fine, I'm glad that
you've seen the Prisoner...now read a book or two about what happens to
political prisoners in the real world. Then we'll talk.

Further, as a writer you strive to create something
original...and when someone comes along and says, of something based on
the real world, on research, on stuff I encountered while getting my
degree in clinical psychology, on years spent supporting PEN and
Amnesty International, "Oh, you were just doing "The Prisoner"...it
tends to grate.

"So where did the inspiration for the interrogators attire come from.
You know dark suit, the hint of gold trim and buttons on the collar."

Well, if you paid attention to the show you'd know that's a
standard business suit which we've used many times before and
thereafter; we literally pulled it off the rack in wardrobe. You saw
that as a Prisoner suit because that's what you wanted to see.

The problem isn't in the object being perceived; the problem is
in the narrow world view of the perceiver who bends everything to fit
what he knows.

jms