On a recent trip to New York, I had the great pleasure to visit lower Manhattan
’s East West Living bookstore and café. I had the opportunity to sign copies of Get the Picture and meet with book buyer Cami Aronowitz (pictured with me here). Be sure to check out the store’s Web site to learn more about its product line and its schedule of upcoming events.And, speaking of New York, to quote the city’s colorful former mayor, Ed Koch, “How’m I doin’?” I’d really like to know! Drop me a line at brentmarchant@momentpoint.com to give me your feedback about this bulletin board, as well as your comments about Get the Picture. Thanks!
Photo © 2008 by Lavelle Porter
Movies are undoubtedly my greatest entertainment passion, but every so often something on the small screen catches my attention that’s well worth a look. That’s especially true when the material illustrates conscious creation principles at work. Such is the case with the quirky new comedy-drama-fantasy offering, Eli Stone (Thursdays, ABC, 10 p.m. Eastern). The series follows the life of the show’s title character, a high-powered San Francisco lawyer (Jonny Lee Miller) who begins experiencing unexplained visions, often at inopportune times, such as during meetings with his boss (Victor Garber) and intimate moments with his fiancée (Natasha Henstridge). Many of these spectacles at first seem irrelevant and annoying, but they quickly turn bizarre, even unnerving. The apparitional appearance of pop star George Michael singing his hit song "Faith" in Eli’s living room, for instance, stretches the suddenly befuddled protagonist’s limits of believability, causing him to question his own sanity.
However, as events unfold, Eli realizes the visions aren’t just random occurrences; he sees that they have meaning. Viewers thus get to watch our hero coming awake, even if he does so somewhat reluctantly. Still, over time, Eli becomes attuned to the synchronicities occurring around him and begins drawing upon the magical approach to conscious creation, using his intellect and intuition to grasp the nature of the reality he’s manifesting. By doing all this, Eli gradually gets a better handle on the new world that’s forming around him. He also gains a better understanding of who he is and what his life purpose is. This is the flowering of his personal value fulfillment.
The seemingly obtuse but fittingly synchronistic materializations occurring in Eli’s life help to clarify his value fulfillment by steering him in a new direction—that of taking on the worthy causes (and cases) that no one else will handle. That’s how, for example, he comes to represent the mother of an autistic child whose condition was believed to be caused by a faulty vaccine preservative. Or how he takes on the case of immigrant agricultural workers whose infertility is suspected to have been the result of pesticide exposure. This is a far cry from the life he led before as a successful but self-absorbed corporate shill. Thankfully, both for him and his new clients, he’s able to hear the ring of his own internal metaphysical alarm clock.
The series features snappy writing and a host of colorful supporting characters, such as Eli’s wisecracking though devoted assistant (Loretta Divine) and a sage but streetwise acupuncturist/spiritual advisor (James Saito). The plot lines are solid, presenting genuinely uplifting stories, but telling them without the overwrought sentimentality of many of this genre’s predecessors (think of the scripts as having been more inspired by Mad magazine than Kodak moments). Some of the visionary sequences are a bit over the top (and feature a little too much George Michael music for my taste), but the show’s real strengths shine through in its quieter moments, when it aptly illustrates conscious creation principles at work.
It remains to be seen if Eli Stone can find an audience, especially in the wake of the recent Hollywood writers’ strike and all the attendant fallout on production and broadcast schedules. The show is fortunate to have the enormously popular Lost as a lead-in to its time slot, but its success ultimately will depend on how well it stands on its own. In the meantime, perhaps the best thing that fans of this series can do is to draw from the wisdom of Eli’s unlikely muse, who simply said “you gotta have faith.”